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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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GOD'S LOVE STORY; 



OR, 



THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO St. RUTH. 



TOGETHER WITH AN EXPOSITION OF THE 
LORD'S PRAYER, AND OTHER SERMONS. 

By GEO. O. BARNES, 

' * MOUNTAIN EVANGELIST. " 



EDITED BY 

GEO. W. GREENWOOD. 



New York : 

CHAS. T. DILLINGHAM, 

678 Broadway. 






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Copyright, 1883. 
By GEO. O. BARNES. 



Livingston Middleditch, Printer, 
26 Cortlandt Street, N. Y. 



PREFACE, 



I publish these sermons for "the truth M that is in them. 
I ought not to be ashamed to print what I boldly preach, 
and I am not. 

Believing, therefore, that the message is from God, and the 
publication timely, I confidently send them forth on their 
errand, little or great, as may be. Thus publishing for God, 
—apologies are out of place. I could have wished that 
light and knowledge, vouchsafed since these sermons were 
preached, might have accompanied them, and at a later date, 
I hope to embody in an appendix, or perhaps a supplemen- 
tary volume, these results, but for the present, the discourses, 
just as they are, must suffice. My dear brother and fellow- 
laborer in the gospel, Rev. Geo. W. Greenwood, has, with 
rare generosity and self denial, undertaken to edit the 
stenographic reports — not with the view of curtailing any of 
the truths uttered, but simply to reduce the size of what 
would otherwise be unwieldy volumes. May the Lord bless 
him for this " labor of love." 

As to the material of these sermons, it is what I have 
gathered at odd times, through the course of a ministry, 
dating from the time the light of a true justifying faith un- 
trammeled by theology broke in upon my life, to the present. 

I have gleaned much from those who have gone before,and 
if I knew how to do it,would gladly give each one credit for 
everything received. But these instructions from others 
have so become mingled with the teachings of the Holy 



IV PREFACE. 

Spirit, directly imparted in meditation, but especially in the 
act of preaching, that I cannot discriminate now, even had 
I the leisure to examine and compare. I can only say, in a 
general way, that I am indebted, first of all, to James Inglis, 
former editor of the Witness, though whom the Lord showed 
me that a sinner was saved by grace through faith, and 
clearly gave me to apprehend the back-bone of true theology, 
the scriptural distinction betwee?i a sinner s salvation and a 
believer s reward. 

Then, after I had withdrawn from the Presbyterian Min- 
istry, I learned much from the writings of the Plymouth 
Brethren, with whom I at one time sought fellowship, and 
from whom, indeed, Mr. Inglis gained most of the advanced 
knowledge he so diligently circulated. 

About this time, I fell in with the books written by Andrew 
Jukes, from whom, above all others, I gained such an in- 
sight into the spiritual meaning of the Word, that I count 
him my most valued instructor. Much from these blessed 
teachers may be found in the sermons, that can be easily 
recognized by those familiar with their writings. To the 
fullest extent, therefore, of indebtedness to others, I care- 
fully disclaim originalty. I am not careful to be known as an 
original thinker, and only wish to get intelligently before 
others what has been so invaluable to me. 

Yet, beyond all these precious instructions through others, 
there are teachings of the Spirit to me, that I am most 
anxious to impart, as He who gave them has said, " Freely 
ye have received, freely give." And perhaps this is all that 
is needful to be said on this point. 

I leave these sermons as a legacy of love to my native 
land, now that, as I write, I am on the eve of embarking 
for the "regions beyond," with little prospect of return. 
Since I have "a growing conviction that I shall not have 



PREFACE. V 

" passed over the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man be 
come." This Scripture takes on a depth of meaning, not 
before discovered, since I have known assuredly that Britain 
and America are the " lost ten tribes," of whom so much 
has been written and said. 

And now, to my dear reader, I simply say what one long 
ago said, "the Lord give thee understanding in all things." 
If thou art a seeker for truth, thou wilt "prove all things 
and hold fast that which is good." Let not prejudice, false 
report, nor the bias of early education, close the eye and ear 
to heaven-descended truth. 

" From which things if you keep yourselves, ye shall do 
well. Fare ye well." Ever in Jesus. 

GEO. O. BARNES. 

266 Schermerhorn street, Brooklyn, Feb. 4, 1883. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

God's Love Story — 

First Discourse, i 

Second Discourse, ----- 19 

Third Discourse, ------ 37 

The Lord's Prayer — 

Our Father, 63 

Hallowed be Thy Name, - 80 

Thy Kingdom Come, - 100 
Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in 

Heaven, - - - - - - 122 

Give us this Day our Daily Bread, - 141 
Forgive us our Trespasses as we Forgive 

those who Trespass against us, - - 156 

Lead us not into Temptation, - - 173 

Deliver us from the Evil One, - - 191 

Look and Live, ------ 209 

The Living Temple, 230 

The Brazen Sea, ------ 248 

Queen of Sheba's Visit to Solomon, - - 268 

The Old and New Creations, - - - 286 

The Fisrt Day of Creation, - 303 

The Second Day of Creation, - - - 323 

The Third Day of Creation, - 339 



GOD'S LOVE STORY. 



First Discourse. 



[Ruth, Chap, i.] 

" God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
son." " God commendeth his love to us, in that while we 
were yet sinners Christ died for us." " God is love." " He 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." So 
you see, dear friends, the story of grace must needs be a 
love story all the time. Love began it, love continues it, 
love consummates it. It must be a love story; and here we 
have one of these love stories of the Bible. There are 
many there, but here we have one of the sweetest of them 
all — a love story in three volumes, praise the Lord; and it 
ends, as all love stories ought to end, in a happy marriage. 
Boaz and Ruth are united in matrimony. These two hearts 
and two lives become one; and although the beginning was 
very unpropitious, as it is with all of us, dear friends, 
''all is well that ends well." That is a good saying. I like 
that; and this old love story winds up, as the model love 
story should wind up, with a happy marriage; and Ruth, the 
Moabitess, so low down as to birth and position, becomes 
the great grandmother of David, who was the ancestor ac- 
cording to the flesh of Jesus Christ, who is God over all, 



2 god's love story. 

blessed forever more. I wish to trace some of the details 
of this sweet little love story, if, peradventure, the old, old 
story should find lodgment in your hearts, and it should 
seem new and glorious to you. 

All this occurred, as the Bible tells us, in the days of the 
Judges. Now, friends, that was a time when every man did 
as he seemed right in his own eyes, for there was no king in 
Israel. That is the history of the Judges, a time of tres- 
pass, in which the only thing is for God to raise up believers 
now and then; but in the main the people did as was right 
in their own eyes. 

In the midst of this scene we find a very happy family. 
Elimelech was the head of it; Naomi was the mother, and 
Mahlon and Chilion were the two sons of this happy union. 
They lived in a delightful, charming place, and the transla- 
tion of these Hebrew names just tell out the story in a nut- 
shell. Elimelech means My God is king. There you have 
the word Eli, — the word as pronounced on the cross, and 
Melech, — My God is king ; and the name of his wife 
was Naomi; that is, beautiful ox pleasant, everything delight- 
ful is suggested. Then the names of the sons were Mahlon 
and Chilion — "Song" and "Perfection" You could not 
have two better names for boys than that, and they were 
Ephrathites of Bethlehem-Judah. Ephrata means abund- 
ance. Bethlehem means house of praying. Judah means 
praise. It would be very difficult to get together as many 
Hebrew words with a more delightful significance than all 
these words have. You see there is unclouded sunshine; 
and the secret of it is discovered in the name of the man, 
Elimelech, because he was at the head of the house, and 
that was the key-note to the happiness of the lovely family 
circle. We are going to see it broken up by-and-bye; and I 
will tell you how the happiest family circle in the world can 



god's love story. 3 

be broken up, but I want to show you that the tap root of 
the blessedness of it began in Eli, Melech ; My God is 
king. God wants to teach us this lesson, that a man is the 
head of the household; and he gives tone and character to 
his house; and if the lesson is needed here to-night, I pray 
God that it may find permanent lodgment in your hearts. 
" My God is king." The moment you take God as your 
king, and you rule as vicegerent in your family, then you 
have got a happy family. But the minute you assume the 
reins of authority in your own right, then the devil has the 
right to come in. To do right is to invite God. To do 
wrong is to open the door for the entrance of the devil, and 
he is not slow to come in. He always comes where he is 
invited; and the way to get the devil out of the house is to 
change your name to Eli-Melech; that is, My God is king. 
A bitter experience has taught me this lesson. I can re- 
member the time when our family circle was by no means a 
happy one; but I do not think it possible to find a happier- 
family circle than mine ; and yet the time has been when it 
was a very unhappy one ; and as an honest confession is 
good for the soul, I will tell you the reason : It was because 
my name was George Barnes, and not Elimelech. 

I was a bad tempered man, and let my temper have its 
way, and that made all the rest of them bad, because this 
thing spreads like fire. The stream cannot rise higher than 
its source, and if the head of the house has got the devil in 
him, then the house has got the devil in it. The children, 
who are but the reflex of the parents, will be just like the 
father or mother. So the devil had his own way in our 
house pretty much for twenty or thirty years ; and now he 
is entirely cast out, praise the Lord. On the day when I 
changed my name from George Barnes, to Elimelech, that 
is, " My God is king," pfc rny wife if she did not get a new 



4 god's love story. 

husband. Ask my children if they did not get a new father ; 
ask my servants if they did not get a new master ; ask so- 
ciety if it did not get a new citizen. It is as if I had been 
to a strange planet, had been made over again, and brought 
back with none of the old characteristics left, and it all came 
about by just inviting Jesus in to turn the devil out in a 
trice ; and we have had Jesus as a welcome guest ever since. 
God blesses us all the time, summer and winter, sunshine 
and rain, every day and every hour his love fills our hearts 
with joy and gladness. There is a wonderful difference be- 
tween having Jesus as king of the family circle, and the 
devil having it pretty much his own way. 

I want to give you the secret of making unhappy, restless, 
discontented family circles all joy and all peace. You can 
do this by just letting Jesus come in, and say, " My God is 
king/' Remember that you are not king, but you are reign- 
ing simply as lieutenant in the place of God. Be " My 
God is king " from first to last, and if you do not have a 
happy family, set me down as an impostor. No, indeed ; 
you will come to me and say . " Brother Barnes, 'the half 
was never told.' ' I would to God that every house in the 
United' States had Jesus for its king. There are so many 
hundreds and hundreds of unhappy families ; so many 
miserable husbands and wives ; so many wretched children. 
Ah, I know the roof covers a great deal ; and the blinds, 
when you draw them down, shut out a great deal. The 
front door is closed, and that is all the general public 
knows about it ; but there is too often a little hell inside. 
Many homes are just like cats and dogs ; children scuffling, 
husband and wife scolding ; tyranny on one side and rebel- 
lion on the other ; but let Jesus c^rae ; change your name 
to Elimelech — " My God is king " — and this will all vanish 
in a trice. Oh, what a happy household you will have if 



god's love story. 5 

you will only change your name to Elimelech ! The very 
moment that is done, Naomi becomes sweet and pleasant. 
My w T ife was not sweet till I became sweet, but as soon as I 
became sweet she became sweet. This dear darling is one 
of the sweetest girls I have ever seen in all my life ; * but I 
can remember when she had a very different temper. She 
was her father's child, just as exactly like me as one pea is 
like another; and now she is just like me ; because God 
has sweetened me ; and we are all sweet. We are as sweet 
as maple sugar, praise the Lord, and you cannot get any- 
thing sweeter in this world than that. I am telling you a 
plain story of experience. I am not telling you about 
second-hand information, but about a thing that I know ; 
that has happened in my own family circle. 

The secret of all evil is that men's names are not Elime- 
lech, and the children's names are not Mahlon and Chilion. 
Mahlon, as I have said, means song, and Chilion perfection. 
Mahlon going about singing. Do you not know what a 
joy it is to have one of your children going about singing as 
merry as a bird ; but you do not want to have all your 
children singing. That would be monotonous, and so you 
have got Chilion, a little, quiet, beautiful thing, that makes 
home full of beauty, peace and rest. You have got one 
quiet one, and one merry one that is keeping things lively. 
Variety is the spice of life. Naomi is sweet; and surely we 
will dwell in Ephrata, the land of abundance ; we will dwell 
in the very house of praying, or Bethlehem ; and surely we 
will praise the Lord for all, for Judah means praise. Ah, 
brethren, the sweet significance of all these old Hebrew 
names, how they come down into this life of ours. 

* The author here refers to his daughter Marie, who has been his 
faithful companion during the past six years of his evangelistic labors, 
whose sweet amiability and devoted Christian life has secured for her 
hosts of admiring friends. — Ed. 



G god's love story. 

Now, all this happy scene was broken up, Let me show 
you how. There came a famine in the land of Canaan; the 
same thing that had disturbed the rest of Abraham in the 
olden time, and of Isaac in the olden time ; the thing that 
keeps men restless by thousands and by millions all the 
world over. There was the meat and bread question that 
broke up this happy family circle. Ah, my dear friends, I 
would to Cod that you had learned that lesson that I taught 
you not long ago, as the mouth piece of God — u Give us this 
day our daily bread ;" I would to God you had learned this 
lesson, " Trust the Lord for your daily wants ;" to bring 
him in to the little affairs of life. Not the grave crises, for 
crises you will have, a half dozen, perhaps, in your life ; but 
if you only trust God during the crises of life, you will have 
a very restless time the other portion of it. The way to have 
a continually rested life, is to bring Jesus as king — as ruler 
into the very smallest details of life, and let him manage the 
meat and bread question ; and then he will say sweetly to 
you, be not careful of the morrow, for the morrow shall take 
care of itself. How are the sparrows fed ? Consider the 
lilies, how they grow ; consider the birds of the air, how 
your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better 
than the sparrows or lilies ? Certainly. Then take no 
thought for the morrow what you eat or what you drink, or 
wherewithal ye shall be clothed — the question that is agitat- 
ing hundreds, and thousands of bosoms in all lands. Every 
soul might be at rest in peace if they would only let Jesus 
manage the meat and bread question : But men who think 
they can trust the Lord for their souls, and do, because they 
cannot save their own souls, and they are bound to entrust 
them to him, they cannot do any better, think that in the 
bread and meat question they will let common sense come 
in, and that is the way they manage that question. The fact 



god's love story. 7 

is nine-tenths of the world to-night is disturbed on that very 
meat and bread question ; and that is a question that lets 
the devil in more frequently than any other, A man says: 
Well, I have got my family to support. The world owes me 
a living and I am bound to have it — and he is a christian 
man, too — But the devil just opens up a drinking saloon for 
him, as the only possible opening. He will shut up every- 
thing else except the one thing he wants you to go into ; 
and says: Now, if you do not sell it, somebody else will- 
There is money in it. There is support for your family in 
it. There are thousands of Christians that are selling whiskey 
all over this country to-night. Are they Christians ? Yes, 
they are ; and some of them are a great deal better Chris- 
tians than those that do not sell whiskey. They are men 
that failed where Abram failed. Are you any better than he ? 
Men that failed where Isaac failed. Are you any better 
than he ? Not a bit. The devil can get you in a close place if 
you do not just simply let Jesus come and manage every- 
thing, absolutely. Why, dear soul, the devil can get you in 
that place where he can get you to do a wrong thing ; cer- 
tainly he cam He said to Lot one day, "Look here, you 
have got lots of cattle ; and there is a lot of grass down to- 
wards the East. Now you just go in that direction. It is 
true Sodom is down there ; but you are not going to Sodom. 
Go down where there is grass." Lot went that way — pitched 
his tents toward Sodom ; and in less than twenty years he 
was Judge of Sodom — sitting in the gates of Sodom — in the 
place of judgment. He had married all his daughters to 
Sodomites, and the devil was having it his own way ; his 
righteous soul vexed from day to day with the filthy conver- 
sation of the wicked. Lot's case is the case of three Chris- 
tians out of four. Let us learn this lesson. Elimelech failed 
there. Lot failed there on the meat and bread question. 



8 god's love stoky. 

Isaac failed on the meat and bread question, for when the 
famine struck Canaan down he went into the land of the 
Philistines. Famine struck Canaan, and down went Abra- 
ham into Egypt, and learned to lie there, just as Isaac learned 
to lie before the Philistines ; and just as Lot vexed his right- 
eous soul from day to day with the filthy conversation of 
the wicked. There is no happiness down there. To be sure 
there is not, but there is meat and bread. 

And so Elimelech went to the Land of Moab — a land out- 
side of where God had called them to. Not in Canaan. A 
land that was under the curse of God. He had commanded 
them not to have anything to do with Moab. Down into 
Moab went Elimelech, dragging his lovely family ; and 
Ephrata he left behind, and Bethlehem was left behind, and 
Judah was placed in the rear, and that happy family circle 
was broken into fragments because the head of the house 
would not trust the Lord for a little meat and bread. That 
is all. Abraham would not trust the Lord for a little meat 
and bread, and so he lighted down in Egypt ; Isaac would 
not trust the Lord for a little meat and bread, and so he 
went down into the land of the Philistines. Lot would not 
trust the Lord for meat and bread, and so he dwelt as Judge 
Lot in the gates of Sodom, and then had to be dragged out 
of it with the loss of his property; the loss of his wufe's life ; 
the loss of his married daughters ; driven with his two re- 
maining daughters up to that lonely cave in the hillsides, 
where the curtain drops upon him in his darkness. God 
have mercy. If the devil ever gets to driving you, friends, 
with an ox goad he has got you just where he wants you, 
and the way he begins the thing is by you not trusting the 
Lord for little things of life. 

That was the secret of all the misery that afterwards hap- 
pened to this family. That was the land of the devil. Moab 



god's love stoey. 9 

was where he had full swing, and retribution comes accord- 
ing to a fixed law. God never did anything to them. They 
just went out into the darkness — into the enemy's territory. 
Elimelech was the head of the family, going into darkness 
and sin ; and he had not long dwelt in that land before the 
devil took an arrow from his quiver, let it fly, and there was 
no Elimelech. He laid his bones in the land of Moab. 
Ruin and disaster followed the death of Elimelech. The 
very atmosphere was an atmosphere of ruin ; so the boys 
went bad, and our lovely Mahlonand Chilion, beautiful and 
sweet they were, went bad. Did you never see good boys 
go bad ? Did you never see lovely children go to the devil. 
Do not wonder that Mahlon and Chilion went there ; the 
head of the house was taken off by the devil. He has the 
power of death. Mahlon and Chilion, resenting maternal 
rule, go off and take to themselves wives of the daughters 
of that land. One of them was named Orpha ; that means 
a skull — a grinning, ghastly skull and cross-bones ; that is 
the name of Orpha. The other married Ruth, who, not- 
withstanding the glorious outcome of her life, in the begin- 
ning she was just as degraded as Orpha. Ruth means 
drunkenness; and of all things on this earth I think a 
drunken woman is the most disgusting sight before angels 
and men. Death and drunkenness — that is what Mahlon 
and Chilion married in the land of Moab ; remember that ; 
and then out in the darkness, their time had come — not 
God's time. He never cuts off anybody ; but the devil had 
been watching his chance, and when they married these 
daughters of Moab he came one day and drew an arrow from 
his quiver — drew it to the head ; Good-bye Mahlon ; and 
then, not long afterwards he drew another arrow to its head; 
good-bye Chilion, and those fine boys are slain by the devil, 
and lie in their dishonored graves in the land of Moab. 



10 god's love story. 

Israelites, my friends, that had dwelt in Ephrata, in Bethle- 
hem-Judah; Elimelech who once had said,"My God is king;" 
Mahlon and Chilion ; "song" and " perfection," the love- 
liest pair of young Israelites the land could furnish. Naomi 
left her two sons and her husband buried in Moab, and re- 
turned to the land of her fathers, old before her time, prema- 
turely grown gray, haggard and wrinkled, as a woman living 
down on the devil's territory, losing her husband and her 
sons in rapid succession, would be. Ten years on the devil's 
ground had done its fearful work. So changed was that 
lovely woman, known in the land of Israel as Naomi or 
pleasant, that when she returned to her old home, the neigh- 
bors held up their hands in horror, and said : " Is this 
Naomi ?" And she said, in the bitterness of her soul : " Call 
me not Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Lord hath dealt very 
bitterly with me." Listen to this Job in petticoats. God 
was doing it all. " The Almighty hath dealt bitterly with 
me. I went out full, and the Lord brought me back empty." 
Lay it on the Lord, Naomi ; He is used to that. " I went out 
full, and the Lord brought me back empty ; wherefore call 
ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath afflicted me." " The 
Almighty hath dealt bitterly with me." Five times she 
charges God with being the author of it all. 

That is the reason Colonel Ingersoll can make infidels by 
thousands. That is the reason he is drawing to his side our 
best young men and best old men ; thinkers of all ages, all 
persuasions ; that is the reason he is sweeping them of! by 
tens of thousands. 

Naomi's representation of God is the God that Colonel In- 
gersoll attacks. That is the God that he does not believe 
in ; the God that kills and slays and burns and destroys 
and tears and rends. A God that is deaf to the cry of 
agony ; a God that hears and never answers, though the 



11 

dearest of his children cry to him. That is the God that 
Ingersoll is assailing, I do not blame him at all. Poor 
man ; he has taken the God of theology as the God of the 
Bible — taken it for granted that the God of theology is the 
God of the Bible .; and then he goes to work and attacks 
the Bible, because he wants to get at this God, who has 
driven him to bay as he drove me to bay at fourteen, till I 
cursed him with my companions, in the bitterness of my 
heart. He has only been driven to bay by the God of this 
theology ; and thinking that the God of theology is the 
God of the Bible he has attacked the Bible because he has 
not gone to the tap root of the thing. Ah, if he knew that 
the Bible had not told of any such God as that. Col. In- 
gersoll has not touched my God in one sentence that he 
ever uttered. He has not come within ten thousand miles 
of him. I do not believe in that God any more than he 
does ; but I do believe in the God of the Bible. I take 
this book from lid to lid. There is not one who loves this 
Bible — every page, every word, every line, every letter of it 
more than I. I clasp it to my heart as the sweet expression 
of my loving father, but if you say that this Bible teaches a 
theological God, I deny it just as fiercely and bitterly as 
ever Ingersoll did. You see the Christian world is on the 
side of the devil in the place of God ; just like our good 
Naomi — laying everything on the Lord. "What do you 
call me Naomi for, seeing that the Lord hath dealt bitterly 
with me ?" "I went out full, and the Lord hath sent me 
back empty. Why then call you me Naomi ? ,! &:c. Poor, 
old, demoralized back-slider, laying it all on to God and 
thinking God has done everything. They had been down 
in the devil's land, and the devil has got a right to shoot his 
arrows in his own land, though he does not dare to put his 
dirty foot on the Lord's highway ; that way of holiness. 



12 god's love stoey. 

Ah, brother, no lion or any ravenous beast shall be there. 
Keep yourself in the love of God, and the wicked one toucheth 
you not; but if you go out of the love of God and get down to 
Moab, the land of the devil, he has got a right to shoot his 
artillery in his own land. God gives the devil his due. He 
does not go down in the land of darkness and make the 
devil stop shooting there. If I am fool enough to stray 
off into the land of darkness the devil has got a right to 
pink me as thick as a pin-cushion, as long as I am there ; 
and the way is to get back in the light, as God is in the 
light. It is beyond the power of Satan to harm you there* 
Keep yourself in the love of God, and that wicked one 
toucheth you not. This wretched laying of all evil on God 
is the very spawn of hell. I cannot tell you how I have 
given my life, with all the loyal love I possess to God, just 
to expose this infernal falsehood of Satan. God will give 
me plenty of breath to do it That is my mission. That is 
the reason I turn my back on Kentucky, the land of my 
birth, forever. I never expect to tread its soil as long as 
my life shall last. I am telling my story in my simple way, 
and God will bring out his own blessed results, even though 
it be through stammering lips. That is exactly what I have 
given my life to do ; and I believe the Lord will save sin- 
ners, and uplift saints through that preaching — praise his 
name forever. 

My friends, we have a lesson here. You see they got off 
into Moab, they became backsliders. That is the lesson found 
in the first volume of this glorious love story. The first lesson 
is when these dear, precious children of God backslide ; 
and the next lesson is how they get back. How one of 
them, at least the one that was left, got back — the restora- 
tion from backsliding. Then the next point in the first 
volume is this ; how the sinner is saved by grace ; and that 



god's love story. 13 

closes the first volume. We have now to do with the first 
volume in this wonderful love story which I trust, by God's 
help, to make plain to you. 

There is only one way, dear friends, for a backslider to 
do ; and that is to return. God never says to a sinner, 
return, because they have not been there. My friends, I 
have returned to Dayton, because I once lived here ; but I 
cannot return to San Francisco, because I have never been 
there. I might turn and go there. So "re" means you 
have been there before. The Lord says, "Backslider, 
return, return, I will heal your backslidings ; I will love 
you freely." But, Lord, if I return haven't you got a switch 
in soak for me ? No, no, no ; there is no switch except on 
the devil's territory. I have not got any such things as that 
about me. The devil is the switcher, and a hard switcher 
he is ; and if you go out into his land the switch will be 
laid on your back, and he hurts, too. 

I know what switching is. I know what natural switch- 
ing is and I know what spiritual switching is. Ah, dear 
friends, there is only one way to get rid of it, and that is to 
return. "Lord, if I come back will you not switch me?" 
"No, what would I want to switch you for." "What will 
you do to me if I return ?" "I will heal your backslidings, 
and I will love you freely." But that is the reason many 
backsliders are staying out in the cold to-night. They are 
afraid if they come back that the Lord is going to switch 
them within an inch of their lives, and nobody wants to be 
switched. 

The devil says to the sinner, if you get Christianity you 
will have to be as miserable as you can be. You will be like 
all these gloomy Christians ; have to join Sunday School, 
and go to church three times on Sunday, and to prayer 
meeting, and you will be killed with religion. What are you 



14 god's love story. 

going into such a thing with your eyes open for ? Have 
a good time while you are young , and when you get old and 
cannot have a good time, in order to get to heaven join any 
society you please. That is the way the devil keeps a young 
person from getting into Church. They are afraid if they 
get to be Christians they will never have any more fun as 
long as they live. My friends, I wish you would believe the 
devil is a liar. Allow me to say that he is a liar. He 
never told anything but lies from the beginning. He makes 
his living by lying. He lies from morning to night ; from 
one end of the year to the other. Just two things make me 
feel good. The first is, to say, " praise the Lord" a great 
many times a day — two hundred about on an average — and 
the other is to tell the devil he is a "liar," and make the peo- 
ple believe he is a liar. My friends, he is a liar ; and so he 
makes the poor backslider stay backsliding, because they 
are afraid if they come back the good God has got a switch 
in soak for them, and he will lay it on. Well, this is purely 
an invention of the Wicked One. The loving God says 
"Come back to me/' and I will heal your backsliding. He 
says, " I have loved you all the time since you have been 
gone ; loved you in all your wanderings, thought of you by 
day and by night, missed you in the family circle, and there 
is a place that is vacant, and never will be filled up until you 
come. My heart is longing for you to come back. See 
how I will love you and heal your backslidings. Come, dear 
wandering child." That is what the Lord speaks. I will defy 
you to find anything else in the Bible. " I will heal your 
backslidings, and love you freely." There, Lord, can I 
ask for anything better than that ? 

And so Naomi returned in a wretched, disgraceful condi- 
tion ; returned in a demoralized condition ; returned with 
a charge against God in her mouth, and that more or less 



god's love story. 15 

crippled her ; but thank God she returned to the dear, dear 
old love, to have her poor, hollow checks filled out, and to 
have her poor, wasted life gladdened ; and lived to nurse 
two generations of grandchildren upon her knees, a happy, 
happy, old age ; and yet at one time she bid fair to die 
and rot in the land of Moab, and lay her bones in the un- 
hallowed grave beside her husband and two sons. That is 
what the Lord will do for a person that has been down in 
the land of Moab. 

Ah, my brother, sister, have you been in the land of 
Moab ? In the land that does not belong to the called of 
God. Have you got away from God, for some reason or 
other ? Then come back. God speaks through his angel, 
and says ; " Come, I want to heal the backslider, and love 
you freely," just as he says, " poor sinner, do not be afraid 
to come to me. The whole question of sin has been settled 
by my Son on the cross. Come out of the darkness into 
the light ; come and let me love you ; come and let me 
show you how I love a sinner. Come and welcome, sinner, 
come." 

So the dear Lord speaks to us all, if you would only hear 
him, instead of listening to the devil's lie. Then, dear 
friends, what is there about the way a sinner is to be saved ? 
He does not return at all, but does turn. That is what dear 
Ruth did. 

Dear friends, here is an epitome of life in this first chap* 
ter. There is Naomi ; the only one that knew the truth at 
all. There was dear Ruth, a sinner of Moab, and there was 
Orpha, another sinner of Moab, just like those two thieves 
on the cross. There was a sinner on one side, and a sinner 
on the other, and the blessed dispenser of life right between 
them, and one of them went to hell, and the other went to 
heaven ; and here Orpha and Ruth are represented to us in 



16 god's love story. 

the same condition. There was one who knew the truth 
and rejected it, and there was one who knew the truth and 
received it. There was one who went back to her land and 
to her gods — the land of darkness, the land of the devil, the 
land of death — and he who follows the devil wilfully and 
willingly, my friends, must share his fate by a decree that is 
as mighty as the devil. God himself — remember that — God 
cannot alter it ; for these decrees are more binding than the 
laws of the Medes and Persians ; they alter not. If you 
willingly go off into the devil's land, and follow the devil, 
you shall have a place with the accursed in everlasting fire, 
prepared for the devil and his angels. God never lit the 
fires of hell for any human being. These fires were pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels. It is not even said God 
prepared them. They were prepared. Here was one who 
chose deliberately to go back to her own land, and her own 
gods, and she was the type of the one who perished. The 
other chose to turn, and go to the land of blessing, and was 
blessed and married Boaz, and became the ancestress in 
a direct line of Jesus Christ, who was God over ail, blessed 
for evermore. Oh, what a fine turning point it is ; as thin 
as a knife blade ; as fine as the point of a cambric needle. 
The point where I will or I will not settled the eternal des- 
tiny, as it settles eternal destinies to-day, and every day since 
sin entered the world. 

Now notice, dear friends, crying does not do a bit of 
good. The first thing they did was to cry. Poor old, back- 
sliding, demoralized Naomi, she did not have anything to 
give to these poor creatures. A backslider never has. Lot 
cannot help the men of Sodom. He can only be soured by 
contact with them, but he cannot help them. You never 
heard of his saving a Sodomite. The light has been hid 
under a bushel, and it gives light to nobody, and so she says 



god's love story. 17 

to them both : " Go back to your gods and your country." 
Just think of that ; a saint. I am broken down. I am 
going back to lay my bones in the land of my fathers ; and 
I have nothing to offer you. Return each to your mother's 
house. They all lifted up their voices and wept together. 
That did not do a bit of good. Tears never do. Sam 
Slick says they never wound a watch or ran a steam engine. 
You might shed a barrel of tears, and it would never get 
you one inch nearer the land of Canaan. So Orpha cried 
and cried ; and when she went back to the gods of her 
fathers, dear friends, she went on crying and crying, and 
may have gone to hell crying. I will tell you what this 
other one did. All at once she stopped crying. Tears are 
no good. Tears are not going to save you. No salvation 
at all in them. All at once she stopped crying ; and I can 
see her now, wiping the tears away, and with resolution 
beaming in her eye and unwavering firmness in her voice, 
she says, u Mother, entreat me not to leave thee, or to re- 
turn from following after thee, for where thou goest I will 
go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, ' and thy people 
shall be my people, and where thou diest I will die, and 
there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more 
also, if aught but death part thee and me." There is the 
word with the bark on it. What do you say to that ! 
When she saw that she was steadfastly minded, she left off 
speaking to her. That is salvation. " What wilt thou that 
I should do unto thee?" " Trust ye in my will. How 
often willed I to gather you as the hen doth gather her 
brood under her wings, but ye willed not." God puts 
everything under the will. That is the human heart that is 
the king of the soul, as this mortal heart of ours is king of 
the body. That is the deciding point. It is not a matter how 
you feel or think. It has nothing to do with your feelings ; 



18 god's love stoey. 

it has to do with your heart. She said, " Mother-in-law, I 
will go with you." When she saw she was steadfastly 
minded she left off talking to her. 

Are you saved ? Do not stand back, saying, " I will wait 
a little longer. I am going to attend to this matter some of 
these days or nights. I know there is a hell and a heaven, 
and I am not going to let the devil catch me." All I can 
say is, hell is paved with good intentions. There were hun- 
dreds that said just exactly what you are saying, and if you 
do not look out you will be one of the number. Millions 
are saying it. Hell is paved with good intentions. That is 
what one of your own men said. I will take Jesus now. 
That is what you should say; I will take him now. Entreat 
me not to leave thee. Where thou goest I will go. She 
was steadfastly minded. Oh, may you drive the devil out 
of your life at once by saying, I will come to Jesus. 



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20 god's love story. 

and there is no use in hoodwinking or ignoring the thing, 
or wearing a mask. It is an abomination in the sight of 
God to ignore this simple fact that there is a higher life and 
there is a lower life, and every man knows it. The man 
that is living in the higher life knows that he is in the higher 
life, and the man that is living in the lower life knows that 
he is in the lower life. We never can make anything by 
ignoring facts. 

We have an exhibition of the lower life in this second 
chapter of Ruth. Here was a creature who, in virtue of her 
lineage or marriage with an Israelite, had a right to be mar- 
ried to Boaz. She had that right just as much when she 
was working in the harvest fields under the burning harvest 
sun as she had afterwards, every bit. She had that right 
just as much when her hands were browned and tanned with 
the fiery sun and her delicate complexion was spoiled by her 
hard life ; she had just as much that right then as she had 
afterwards, when she was in the full enjoyment of Boaz's 
palace, and of his wealth. I want to show you as best 
I can how it is that Christians stay in a lower position 
when it is their birthright to be in a higher one, and then I 
want to show you the way out of it as the Lord shall give 
me utterance. You see the difficulty — the main spring of the 
difficulty in the case of Ruth was this : that she looked for 
advice to one who was incapable of giving it. Naomi was 
an old, demoralized backsli'der, who had been ten years 
living down in Moab, becoming more and more demoralized 
every day. She had lived there so long that she did not 
know God from the devil ; and that is a thing that is very 
common to-day ; Christians who do not know God from 
the devil, and the simple proof of it is that, when she was 
asked about her trouble, she laid it all on the Lord. " The 
Lord hath dealt bitterly with me. The Lord hath afflicted 



god's love story. 21 

me. I went out full, and the Lord hath sent me back 
empty." The Lord sent ; Like Adam in the 3d of Genesis, 
" The woman that Thou gavest me." There is the man who 
set the key note of all this devilment. The worst sinner that 
ever the world saw was Adam. " The woman that Thou 
gavest me." If you had not given me the woman I would 
not have been in the scrape ; and so he set the key note, and 
Christians have not been slow to follow him ; and all these 
people who are laying the devil's work on the Lord are 
doing that thing ; it does not matter where they are living. 
Although some of those things accompany us up into the 
higher life, and cling unto us as an old habit will, even to 
those w T ho get up into a higher place, yet it is a certain mark 
of the lower life that a man does not know God from the 
devil. Anybody that lives down in Moab where Naomi 
lived gets into that miserable condition ; and, of course, the 
stream does not rise higher than its source ; and if poor 
Ruth will go and ask advice from Naomi, why, she will get 
the advice that will send her into the harvest fields, and 
never into the palace of Boaz, never, never. 

By-and-bye, when dear old Naomi is thoroughly deliv- 
ered from her backsliding, and she herself gets out into the 
joy of the Lord we find out that she gives Ruth very differ- 
ent advice from going into the harvest field to glean and 
labor with Boaz's maidens. She wakes up one day to the 
knowledge of what she ought to have known all along, and 
ought to have advised her young kinswoman, that there is a 
man who ought to be her husband. What are you living on 
a bare ephah or two of barley for, when you might both be 
in the palace of this mighty man of wealth ? And now, my 
daughter, go down and claim the place at his board ; and she 
did it, and that was the wind up of the story ; but I want 
you to see why this was not done at first. Ruth went to this 



22 god's love story. 

old frost-bitten saint, that did not know God from the devil ; 
that had lived so long down in Moab, and was not thoroughly 
restored to the joy of God's salvation ; had not come into 
the full blessing of Canaan life again ; and so when she said, 
Mother-in-law, it looks as if we are going to starve, poor 
Ruth did not know how to trust the Lord for meat and 
bread now, she says, I will go down and glean in some man's 
field ; and poor Naomi said : "Go, my daughter, and the 
Lord be with you." 

Oh, what a beautiful thing this might have been, and how 
it illustrates real life. A young Christian comes into the 
church, full of glowing zeal, hot with first love, and wants 
to know what to do ; and then some poor, old frost-bitten 
Christian that has been grinding along in a course of servi- 
tude for some twenty or thirty years — some old spy in the 
prayer meeting or class room, that brings up every evil re- 
port, and squirms at the idea of the higher life, says : I will 
tell you what to do. " Now that you have made a profession 
of religion, boys, I don't think you ought to laugh quite so 
much." You ought never to do, anything now that will 
bring reproach upon the religion of your dear Saviour ; and 
if you ask me what to do, I would advise you to read two 
chapters in the morning, and two at night before you go to 
bed ; take a class in Sunday School, join the choir, and al- 
ways be in your place in the Bible class ; and go and visit 
the sick ; be sure to quit dancing," and quit this and that and 
the other, and so and so. And they lay so many burdens 
on you, that you are just like our poor Ruth in the harvest 
field ; hard work and very little pay ; like that poor servant 
that was stopping and feeding cattle in the field — just one 
of these lower life Christians, that after having come in and 
girded himself and served his master and given him some- 
thing to eat, got this ungracious message ; "Now, that I am 



god's love story. 23 

satisfied, go and get something yourself." Does that master 
thank that servant ? I trow not. That is hard. And so 
you, after you have done all, are but unprofitable servants. 
You have done that which it was your duty to do. That is 
the harvest field. That is the meaning of being in the lower 
life. That is the second day in the new creation. That 
is the 7th of Romans, my friends. That is the lower life. 
Think of the poor saint of the Lord, saying, " O Lord, 
increase my faith, and howling it out and groaning it 
out, and agonizing it out, as they call it, agonizing in 
prayer. " O Lord, increase my faith," as though faith 
were going to come up in a large express package, by 
the box, done up in a bundle as big as a store box, and as 
though the Lord was going all at once to take you in to get 
the first blessing. Ah, my friends, that prayer is a lower 
life prayer ; that service is service of the lower life. Come 
up into something better than that, my friends. 

If, instead of standing with that little grain of mus- 
tard seed in your fingers, and saying : " What a little seed 
that is, how very little faith I have got, yes, I can hardly 
see it ; I have to turn it up between me and the light in 
order to see it all," you, poor fool, stop doing that, put 
that little seed in the ground, and you will be perfectly as- 
tonished at the way it will grow. That is no place to put a 
grain of mustard seed, between your thumb and finger. Put 
it in the ground and let it grow ; and though it is the least 
of all seeds, by-and-bye it will flourish with life, so that the 
very birds of the air will come and find lodgment in its 
branches. Oh, dear, dear soul, come, now, I want you to 
get something better than that. That is not what the Lord 
wants you to have. He wants you to have something better 
than that. " Lord, increase our faith," says Jesus ; " I am 
not going to increase it. Increase it yourself." " How, Lord? 



24 god's love story. 

how can I do that ?" " Plant your grain of mustard seed. 
You have got that. Everybody has got that. You stick it 
in the ground. I cannot do it for you. Put it in the ground. 
I can give growth to it ; certainly I can." Ah, dear soul, 
that is what the Lord says to us ; and if you were to com- 
mence this afternoon with just the faith you have, instead 
of saying: " What a little faith I have got," your faith would 
grow. 

Did you ever see a man that grew wealthy by sitting on a 
store box, and saying : " I wish I had lots of money;" as if 
it were going to rain down out of the skies. A man that 
will make nickels and save them will get rich. He is bound 
to do it ; and if you will plant the grain of mustard seed you 
have, it will not do much now, but it is glorious for the 
possibilities that are in it. A grain of mustard seed cannot 
remove mountains ; but if you have got a grain of mustard 
seed — and everyone of you has — why, it will grow into this 
faith that will remove a mountain. Paul never says nor in- 
dicates, and there is nothing in the teaching of the Bible to 
the effect that mustard seed faith will remove mountains. 
Paul says, "If I had all faith I could remove mountains." 
There is in that mustard seed the possibilities of glorious 
things that will come from growth. We grow in grace and 
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and at every 
stage of this divine life, it is first the blade then the ear, and 
then the full corn in the ear. Oh, what a happy man I was 
when I found that out, the 25th of August, 1876 ; and I 
planted my little grain of mustard seed, and I said, praise 
the Lord, I am sanctified, I am sanctified. 

What do you mean by being sanctified ? I mean that a 
man that plants his grain of mustard seed is a sanctified 
man — instead of holding it in his fingers and saying, Lord 
increase my faith, he sticks his grain of mustard seed in the 



god's loye story. 25 

ground ; then he is sanctified, and if that man's faith does 
not grow it will be because it is bad seed ; but the seed is 
good seed. It is God's own purpose, given to you. It is 
the dearest blood of Jesus Christ, and it is bound to be good 
seed. All the power is given to him in heaven and earth- 
and he will give it undying growth ; and if you will just 
bury that grain of mustard seed in the ground, how you will 
gaze with eyes of wild surprise upon the wondrous growth 
it will make. Plant the seed and God certainly will give the 
increase. He does not ask you to do what he alone can do; 
but he holds you responsible for the planting ; and that is 
exactly what the lower life Christian does not do. They sit 
groaning and saying : Oh, I wish I were better. You never 
will be better as long as you talk that way. Trust the Lord 
with what faith you have got. That is the way we grow in 
every department. I do not know whether you have got 
faith enough to cure you to-day, but I know you have got 
a mustard seed ; and if you will plant it, and let the Lord 
give it growth, you are just as certain to get well as that 
there is a God in heaven. You can say positively I will not 
die. I believe, and I will declare the lovingkindness of 
the Lord, and the Lord will take every word you say; praise 
his name forever ; for faith pleases the Lord ; and without 
faith it is impossible to please him ; and we have all got 
enough faith to please him if we will just exercise what we 
have got. 

Now, dear friends, when Ruth went into the harvest field, 
it was her hap to light upon a certain field that belonged to 
Boaz. That little word " hap " shows that she was out of the 
Lord's plan. There is no hap about the Lord's plans at all. 
His plans are perfect, and they are certain. The word hap, 
or perhaps, or peradventure — they are not in the Lord's plan 
at all. The word hap belongs to the lower life. The word 



2G god's loye story. 

hap belongs to the harvest field. She did not happen to sit 
there at that pile of wheat when she got the best blessing. 
There was no hap about that. She went according to the 
divine, fixed purpose, and knew what she was going to get, 
and knew why she went there. But as long as you are in 
the harvest field, and living in the lower life, there is always 
more or less hap about your life. Hap, you remember, 
means "Fortune." It is a poor, blind goddess of the 
ancients, with a cornucopia, scattering dollars and cents 
blindly down for anybody to catch them that can. That is 
hap, chance, fortune. There is no such thing in God's 
plan. That belongs to the harvest field. It is not God's 
plan to have you in the harvest field. It is not God's plan 
that the bride of his son should go down there and scorch 
her pretty skin, ttnd harden her soft hands, working like a 
common laborer in the harvest f}eld, any more than it is 
God's desire that the bride of his Son should keep the door 
of his house. He has got plenty of angels for doorkeepers; 
and dear friends, " if I can only be a door keeper in the 
house of my God, I will be satisfied." Yes, that is what the 
devil wants you to do; but the Lord is not satisfied with 
that if you are. If you are satisfied with what the Lord is 
not satisfied with, the devil has got hold of you in some 
shape or other. I should not be satisfied to be the door- 
keeper. I can say, just as David did, I would rather be a 
door-keeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents 
of wickedness. Have you got no better choice than that ? 
I would rather barely squeeze into heaven than go to hell. 
Is that the only choice you have got ? That is not the 
choice that is before us. God's plan is to take us up to the 
very front. God wants us to be in the palace of Boaz. 

Notice, this man's name was Boaz. I will tell you what 
Boaz means. It means strength. Jachin and Boaz are the 



god's love story. 27 

pillars of Masonry and the temple. Boaz means strength 
and Jachin establishment. This word Boaz means he was all 
power — a type of Jesus Christ. It means all power or all 
strength committed to him in heaven and earth. 

Now, I want you to make a distinction so that you will 
never forget it, that Ruth was a type of the lower life 
Christian through ignorance ; for, mark you, there is a dif- 
ference between lower life Christians. There is the lower 
life through ignorance, and there is the lower life through 
wilfulness. Poor Ruth was gleaning in the harvest field 
because she did not know any better. Lot was a dweller in 
Sodom because he was wilfully in the lower life. He knew 
he had no business there. He knew he ought not to be 
there. His righteous soul vexed itself from day to day with 
the filthy conversation of the wicked ; and yet, dear friends, 
the devil so twisted him up in his web that he stayed there 
until his daughters were married, and that formed another 
tie; and his property w r as all invested there, and that formed 
another tie ; and they elected him to be county judge, and 
that was another tie ; so that he became Judge Lot, sitting 
in the devil's own temple, right in the land of the Sodo- 
mites, calling the Sodomites brethren ; and he all the time 
knew that he was doing the wrong thing. 

I want you to discriminate between the retribution that 
comes to these two. Dear Ruth did not know any better. 
She went by the advice of one who ought to have advised 
her well, but who was so demoralized that she did not give 
her the right advice, and she got off with burned hands and 
blistered feet,sore feet and hard work, arid grime and sweat 
in the harvest field, living on two ephahs of barley a day ; 
which was bare support for her and her mother-in-law ; and 
after she had worked hard all day she had to come home 
and cook it for old Naomi, ftnd there the old backslider 



28 god's love story. 

stayed, first living on barley, and then on wheat, and did 
not give any better advice. But remember the difference 
between her and Lot, the wilful backslider. Ah, my friends, 
there is the difference between many stripes and few stripes. 
That servant which knew his master's will and did it not, 
shall be beaten with many stripes, but that servant that did 
not know his master's will, yet did things worthy of stripes, 
shall be beaten with few stripes. Dear Ruth was of the lat- 
ter sort. She received but few stripes ; her punishment was 
light. Lot's was many stripes, turned out from all his pos- 
sessions with the loss of everything and he covered with re- 
tribution because of his great crime. Whether saint or sin- 
ner, what a man sows that he will reap ; and while Ruth 
got off with sun-burned hands, hard work and little recom- 
pense, Lot was peremptorily dragged out of Sodom with the 
loss of every cent of property ; his wife turned into a pillar 
of salt before his eyes ; his children destroyed in the fiery 
shower that swept off the city, and he put off yonder in that 
dark cave in the mountain side. He that knoweth the 
master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many 
stripes. That is not the Lord's will, but the Lord cannot 
prevent the devil harassing him ; only he says : don't you 
harass him much ; just as he said in the case of Job, don't 
you lay your hands on his life ; remember you have got no 
right to do that. If Job had gone on with what he did do, 
my friends, I have no doubt the devil would have pulled a 
death's arrow on him — killed him, dead, dead, dead. That 
is the simple teaching of the word. I want you to notice 
how these things are going on, and discriminate. 

Boaz, remember, was a man that had a good, old-fash- 
ioned kind of religion. I would to God I could be instru- 
mental in introducing it in every city in the world. I wish 
you dear people would start it to-day, and keep it up after I 



god's loye story. 29 

am gone. You see, Boaz was a sort of " praise the Lord" 
man. He never let the confession of the Lord's name sour 
on him. Do you know that an unconfessed blessing will 
sour on you ; that evil in your heart will turn it as sour as 
vinegar if you do not confess it ? David says, " I will say 
of the Lord, he is my refuge." I want you to think it ; I 
want you to ponder it ; I want you to master it. I want 
you to say, the Lord, he is my refuge. I will give him the 
fruit of my lips ; I will praise him with my mouth. People 
say : I do not like all this ostentation. It sounds like cant 
to be going around saying praise the Lord. That is exactly 
what the devil says to you. The devil is awfully afraid of 
cant. Do you know that, while you are so afraid of cant, 
your life is oozing away, and your whole soul is getting to 
be so threadbare that you will soon be of no account in the 
world? There is only one way to prevent that; by the con- 
fession of the good, old-fashioned religion, where men went 
about saying, " Praise the Lord." When Boaz came among 
his reapers in the harvest-field, he said, " The Lord be with 
you, brethren ; " and then the reapers said, " The Lord 
bless thee ; " for like master, like men. You will find pious 
servants where there is a pious master, just as when the 
head of the house is Elimelech all the house will be sweet. 
If one of our merchants that has a dozen clerks should go 
into his store in the morning and say, " My friends, the 
Lord be with you," they would run out of the back door 
as hard as their legs could carry them. They would think 
the master had gone crazy. The idea of a man with a lot 
of employees going in to them and saying, " The Lord 
bless you to-day." Who ever heard of such a thing ? Did 
you ever hear of it here ! Ah, friends, happy is the man 
whose God is the Lord, and who is not afraid to say it ; 
who is not ashamed to sav it. Boaz was not. " The Lord 



30 god's love stoky. 

be with thee." Ah, that is very sweet, that old response in 
the Episcopal prayer-book. I would to God we would 
carry it outside of the prayer-book and outside of the 
church walls ; be bold enough to say it in the presence of 
everybody. I began it about five years and a half ago, 
under the advice of a person that has talked to me just as I 
am talking to you to-day — said, " Dear soul, you commence 
and say praise the Lord to-day ; " and I said, " I will do it 
if it kills me." It did nearly choke me to death the first 
time I said, Praise the Lord. A person came and said, 
" Brother Barnes, how are you ? " "I am pretty well, 
praise the Lord." I got it out just like a chicken with a 
piece of stone in its throat. The next time I said it I did 
not feel much like it. I choked a little bit. I do not now 
have the least trouble. It is just as hard to break a good 
habit as a bad habit, and the Lord has so fixed it upon me 
that it is quite a controlling habit. The more I say it, the 
more I want to say it. The oftener I say it, the more I 
delight to say it. Now, if you say, " How do you do, 
Brother Barnes ? " I do not say, " I am well, I thank you." 
I have got nothing to thank you about ; I say, "I am well, 
praise the Lord," because he made me well. I would not 
rob the Lord. Every time you say " I am well, thank you," 
you say thank you to the man that is kind enough to inquire 
about you, but do not thank the Lord who made you well. 
My dear souls, try the experiment. If it does not come 
very easy at first, never mind that. The second or third 
time it will begin to taste sweet in your mouth, and from 
that time on it will be the very strength of your life. I 
could not live without saying praise the Lord about two 
hundred times a day. It keeps me in perfect spiritual 
health. Boaz was one of those old-fashioned Christians. 
Would to God the fashion would prevail among Christians. 



god's love story. 31 

People will, of course, call you a hypocrite. They will 
say that is all cant ; but you can very well afford to endure 
all that sort of talk, as long as your heart is warmed up 
with the dear love of God, and your life is blooming, 
and budding, and blossoming, and bringing luscious fruit. 
You can very well afford to have a little loose talk around 
your ears for that. 

Just notice now. I want to show you if we will not come 
into the palace, he will come out into the harvest field. 
The minute Boaz came into that harvest field and looked at 
Ruth, he said, Who is that fair damsel ! There was love at 
first sight. That is a story of true love. True love does 
not always run smoothly, my friends ; that is an adage 
among men, and that is a famous story, " True love never 
does run smoothly ;" but here we have a case of love at first 
sight. "Who is this damsel ;" and when it was told him he 
said to her ; " Damsel, go not into any other field. Abide 
here fast by my maidens. I will give commandment to my 
men that they shall not trouble you ; and when you are 
athirst go and drink of the water that the young men have 
drawn ; and when they come to the harvest dinner, you 
come in, and dip your morsel in the vinegar boldly and eat ; 
and get what you can in the harvest field ;" and when they 
all sat down to eat he handed her parched corn. That will 
keep starvation off ; parched corn and a bit of bread sopped 
in vinegar and water will keep starvation away, certainly. 
I do not say that the Christian in the 7th of Romans is not 
a Christian. He is. The farther I go and the more I know, 
the more Christians I find all over the country; even people 
that are never suspected of being Christians. I am thor- 
oughly pursuaded that they are Christians ; but they are just 
these vinegar sop Christians ; they are these parched corn 
Christians ; they are these gleaning and beating Christians ; 



32 god's loye story. 

and the world is full of them, and the church is full of them; 
for many are called and few are chosen. Ah, friends, their 
religion is an orange about six or seven days old, with the 
juice all out of it. These poor Christians hang upon the 
knowledge of some favorite preacher ; and suck a dry ser- 
mon that has not got more than five drops of milk in it, and 
a little handful of parched corn now and then, and a little 
sop in the vinegar, and then work in the blazing sun in the 
harvest field ; and after you get through go up and go to 
work and cook what you have got and feed your mother-in- 
law ; like the servant plowing in the field and feeding cattle 
in the field. There is nothing to thank him for. He is an 
unprofitable servant. He is a servant that is not worth his 
wages. Is not that a good definition ? A profitable servant 
is one that is worth more than his wages. I lived thirty-five 
years not worth my wages, and now I am worth more than 
my wages ; and I would tell as big a lie if I were to say I 
am an unprofitable servant, as I would ten years ago if I 
said I was a profitable servant. Then I was not earning my 
wages ; and the Lord never had occasion to thank me ; but, 
bless you, I have had many a word of thanks since then, be- 
cause I deserved it ; because I am a profitable servant, 
made so by the sweet grace of my blessed Jesus ; to whom 
I am married ; even Jesus, risen from the dead, that I may 
bring forth fruit unto God ; and the servant that is worth 
more than his wages is a profitable servant all the world 
around. I am inviting you to come from that lower, miser- 
able, half-starved life — I am inviting you to come to Boaz's 
palace ; where there is bread enough and to spare ; and 
where you may be the mistress of broad acres where once 
you worked as a slave in the harvest field ; and then, here 
is another thing : If we will go into the harvest field the 
good Lord will come down and just do his best for us. Do 



god's love stoky. 33 

not think that the Lord is not good to a man, and does not 
love him because he, deliberately, either wilfully or ignorantly 
selected the harvest field or Sodom. Do not think that the 
Lord does not love us. He does love the man that is in 
Sodom, and he will take no end of trouble to deliver him 
from the destruction that is coming upon Sodom ; and to 
the poor girl in the harvest field he will give explicit direc- 
tions, and give word to his men and maidens to treat us 
well ;• and let us sop our bread in the vinegar and have his 
laborers let drop handfuls on purpose for us ; and let us 
glean among the sheaves unrebuked. All these kindnesses 
will Boaz, our friend, our husband, do for us. Why ? Be- 
cause that is the best we can do ; and he will do the best he 
can always. Whether it be salvation or the higher life, if 
there be first a willing spirit on your part, God can save you 
as a sinner or lift you up to a higher place as a saint ; but 
if you are- not willing, then He will come down to you on 
your selected plane, and there he will do his very best for 
you. In the midst of all this unfaithfulness of ours the 
faithfulness of God is beyond words to express. 

I declare to you that the most touching things in this 
world is where the Lord comes down to his people of old, 
even when they had ignorantly done a great many wrong 
things ; and then for thirty-eight years wilfully did many 
things, the Lord came down and tabernacled with them all 
the time. And Caleb and Joshua, who were men of the 
Lord, went with them. 

That is the reason I persuade nobody to get out of the 
church. The call to get out of these corrupt churches has 
not come yet. If anybody says, I will starve to death with 
the preaching I get, I say, do you believe with the belief of 
Caleb and Joshua ? I know they are a stiff-necked-people, 
but I say, just as Caleb and Joshua did, Stay in there and do 



34 god's love story. 

the best you can. I know it is a time of great tribulation. 
The call from God Himself will be, Come out of her, my 
people. I dare you to find any such call in the Bible. The 
call has not gone out. When God gives the call then it will 
be time enough to obey it. In the meanwhile stay where 
you are. Be a center of light and blessing where you are. 
Obey the Lord. He comes down into the harvest field ; 
and dear, dear friends, you and I can afford to stay in com- 
pany with those that live in the harvest field ; and remem- 
ber this : the dear blessed God comes down and does the 
very best he can do ; does the very best he can for those 
who will be servants instead of friends ; but if you want to 
come up into the higher life, Jesus says, I call you no longer 
servants, but friends. That is, he called us servants when 
we wanted to be servants. When we obtained the spirit of 
adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father, he ceased to call 
us servants. Remember all that are saved do not have the 
spirit of adoption. They are children, but do not know 
their privileges. Like a babe they suck from time to time a 
little milk and one thing and another, but they have not got 
the spirit of adoption whereby they say, Abba, Father ; oh, 
no, no ; they do not know what it is to say, dear Father. 
They do not know what it is to throw their arms around 
his neck. They have the spirit of bondage to fear ; but as 
soon as they get the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, 
Abba, Father, day and night, then they have got freedom 
indeed. 

And so, God comes down into the harvest field and does 
the best he can for us. He will tabernacle with poor Israel 
when they tramp around in the hot sand of the desert for forty 
years — during two years of ignorant wandering, and thirty- 
eight years of wilful wandering, God never left them. That 
is why I am going to stick to the people of God. 1 remem- 



god's loye stoky. 35 

ber once that I made a mistake and came out from among 
them ; anticipating the call, come out from among them and 
be ye separate. I anticipated that call, and I will tell you 
what happened to me. I got spiritually so poor that you could 
hear my bones rattle ; and now, my friends, I have changed 
the plan entirely ; and I say, The place where the shepherd 
ought to be is where the sheep are ; and if God's sheep have 
fallen down in a gully and have broken their legs or bumped 
their heads, I, as a good shepherd ought, go down in the 
gully, and try to get them out ; and if they go out and crop 
a little dry goose grass that is not fit for sheep to live on, it 
is my business to go and show them where, in some sequest- 
ered nook, down some shady vale, the pastures are good, 
where the grass is green, and where quiet waters run. This 
thing of standing out and abandoning sheep to their fate, 
I believe is of the devil. This plan to break up the churches 
is of the devil. It never succeeded. It has always failed. 
One sect after another has been chopped off. I have been 
invited five hundred times to form a sect, and I could have 
a little bit of a scraggy sect by the name of Barnesites — a 
poor little, scraggy, scrawny, lame, miserable little sect called 
the Barnesite Sect. Good Lord, to think that 1 ever added 
number three hundred and fifty-one to the three hundred 
and fifty already established. Of this wretched come-out 
business God says : " These are they that separate them- 
selves not having the spirit." If you are in the church stay 
there like Caleb and Joshua, and do the best you can. If 
your preacher starves you, say, Praise the Lord, and you 
feed somebody that you can feed, and warm up some poor 
heart that sits next to you, and may be the fire w T ill get into 
the pulpit, and then it will begin to blaze ; and you will be 
in God's hands the direct instrument for infusing that glo- 
rious life into the church. 



3G god's love story. 

And so, dear friends, our Boaz always comes down into 
the harvest field, that is, if we go there, but he would rather 
have us in the palace ; but he will do his best for us where we 
choose to stay ; and I do not pretend to say that there is not 
a certain growth even in the harvest field. When Ruth was in 
the harvest field the barley came first, and then the wheat, 
and wheat is a stronger grain than barley. She gleaned 
through all the barley harvest and through all the wheat har- 
vest that followed it. She gleaned through the whole sea- 
son. There is some little progress in the 7th of Romans. 
Surely in all our cases there is a little feeble growth. There 
was some progress in my life for thirty-five years ; but ah, 
dear brother, sister, I want to know how much progress you 
have made in the twenty, thirty or forty years that you have 
belonged to the church. How that question would have 
brought me almost to death five and a half or six years 
ago ; because I could not dare to look in God's face and say 
I have grown symmetrical or grown rapidly ; no, no, my 
friends, I had lived that miserable, starved life, that medi- 
cated life, that had a little bit of sickly growth in it. I 
had been so much trouble to my heavenly Father, like sickly 
children that have little growth, but dear me, they are so 
much trouble to their parents to keep them everlastingly 
wrapped up. I know there is a little growth ; poor little, 
spindle-shanked, small-visaged creatures that they are. It 
is from the barley to the wheat harvest, but nothing but 
gleaning all the way along. It is progress on a low plane. 
The good Lord pities us, and he wants us to get up higher. 
There is a higher life, let us talk as we may, and that is 
what I want to speak more particularly about when we come 
together again ; that is the glorious wedded life in the his- 
tory of Ruth and Boaz ; the third volume in this sweet 
little love story. 



GOD'S LOVE STORY. 



Third Discourse. 



[Ruth iii— iv.] 

This is the third volume in our little love story. This is 
placed at the winding up, as far as earth is concerned, 
for you cannot get any further than this blessed consumma- 
tion down here in the world ; and this Bible was written 
for the earth, my friends, remember that. It is not some- 
thing that is going to happen in heaven ; it is not a nuptial 
ceremony performed up yonder ; it is not the marriage 
supper of the Lamb, but it is the union of two loving hearts 
that are made for each other. It is an earthly marriage, 
that shall find, of course, its most perfect consummation 
in the heavenly world, when we see Jesus as he is, and when 
we are with him ; but this rather expresses, dear friends, 
what we experience when he comes down to be with us 
where we are, and becomes consciously the partner of our 
lives ; the dear Saviour ; the Son of God, whom we have 
known as a Saviour, surely we have, and yet in whose ser- 
vice we have found labor and toil, "cumbered with care and 
cumbered with much serving," and in whose serving there 
is much care and painstaking, for the yoke is not easy, and 
the burden is not light. It is hard work in the harvest field. 
It is legal obedience when they are in the seventh chapter 
of Romans, before they have been emancipated and get out 
into the eighth. It is that form of service that is typified 



38 god's love story. 

in the life of Martha, who had not chosen the better por- 
tion. There is a better portion, and the Lord Jesus Christ 
does not depreciate what she did. He would never have 
opened his mouth unless she had come and compared her 
services with Mary's services ; and he says : You think you 
have got a better thing than she, but she has got the better 
portion that will not be taken away. Martha, you are care- 
ful and cumbered about much service. He appreciated her 
love and kindness, and it was good as far as it went, but it 
was kindness to a weary traveller ; He saw it was kindness 
to a tired man. But if you get no further than that you 
have a portion that is full of trouble and care ; cumbered 
and careful about much serving. We must come as Mary 
did to the blessed Son of God. She could sit at his feet, 
though the sweat of the highway was upon his brow, and 
the dust of the highway was upon his sandals ; at his feet she 
could sit and be filled with his fullness ; for she walked not 
by sight. She walked by faith, for that reveals Jesus Christ 
in a higher, deeper, grander character than as one who is 
to be ministered unto by us ; for remember he himself de- 
scribes his own services, "I came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister." To give is his. To fill with blessing is 
his, and, dear friends, we never know the perfection of our 
Saviour's love until we get in that position where we are 
perfect receivers of his fulness. To receive him as saviour 
is to be called a child of God ; I know that as well as you 
do ; but to receive of his fullness, that is nothing. To com- 
prehend Jesus Christ in his full character ; to grow in grace 
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And so, dear friends, I want to talk to you about this 
higher life. The second chapter of Ruth tells about the 
lower life ; the gleaning and beating in the harvest field ; 
the life of the many Christians who are called. The third 



god's love story. 39 

chapter tells out the sweet privileges of the few that are 
chosen. I want you to be among that number, friends ; 
and I am quite sure that the Lord, some time or other, puts 
before us this blessed destiny that belongs only to the few 
that are chosen. I am quite sure of that. Many as sinners 
forfeit salvation ; by carelessness, by turning aside to the 
farm or to merchandise, by having a newly married wife or 
five yoke of oxen or a piece of land — anything. Anything can 
forfeit a crown as well as anything can forfeit an eternal life. 
I know full well that many to whom God offers this higher 
position and this better portion forfeit it through the failure 
to receive it ; but that is not the Lord's fault ; just as he 
offers to every sinner the salvation that Jesus Christ came 
down to purchase for all in common, by the grace of God, 
tasting death for every man. So, dear friends, every one 
that is saved by grace, as sure as God is God, has a chance 
for this blessed crown ; has a chance for the higher place, 
and the better portion ; has an opportunity to get not only 
life, but life more abundantly. The forfeiting of it is 
another thing. I am sorry to say that most saints forfeit it, 
just as most sinners to whom the offer of salvation comes 
forfeit it, by rejection ; by neglect ; by refusal ; but we 
must carefully understand, dear friends, that that is not 
God's fault. 

And so I want to place this better portion before you, 
for I know something about it, praise his dear name ; and 
I am not talking about second-hand religion. I am talking 
about something that I know something about. I want to 
talk about the better portion — the life more abundantly ; 
and this, if I understand it, is to know Jesus Christ as our 
husband ; as our companion ; as the friend of our life. It 
is not to know him simply as the giver of salvation, but it 
is to know him as the partner of our lives ; in other words, 



40 GOD'S LOVE STOKY. 

dear friends, it is the transition from the condition of salva 
tion where we are looking for a thing, to the place where 
we will lean our heads upon the bosom of a person. That 
is what it is. It is the place where we no longer learn of 
Jesus — know him as Jesus, but as Jesus, the Christ. It is 
the knowledge of a person ; and, dear friends, when you 
come to analyze your own experience, this all comes out, if 
you are at all intelligent in the analysis ; if you can at all 
understand the workings of the love of God in your own 
soul. 

When I am delivered from hell, that is all very sweet, that 
is all very blessed. I rejoice in that; I am more than glad 
that I am not going to hell. Well, that is the negative side. 
And then there is another thought comes into my mind that 
I not only am not going to hell, which I was facing all the 
time when I was a lost sinner, but I am going to heaven. 
Well, that is very sweet, that is positive joy. I am going to 
heaven. I am going to be happy forever, I ! I ! I ! All 
very good. The Lord does not object to your enjoying 
what " I" is going to get. Not a bit. He says, well, that is 
a state of childhood. Every child must live as a child, and 
think as a child, and act as a child. A child cannot eat 
strong meat. It lives on. After a while you become a man 
or woman, then put away childish things. 

I take just about as little comfort as any one you know in 
thinking I am not going to hell, and am going to heaven. I 
think very little of heaven ; do you know that ? I think 
very little of hell. I take very little positive enjoyment in 
the idea that I am saved from hell, or am going to heaven ; 
though that was the very center of my life at one time ; and 
in the lower stage of Christianity, when I did not know what 
it was to rest my head by day and night upon the living, 
beating heart of my Saviour. I assure you that that consti- 



GOD'S LOYE STORY. 41 

tuted the warp and woof of my enjoyment, I am going to 
heaven ; and sometimes I thought, Oh, that I had the wings 
like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest. I 
wanted to be in heaven many times, and longed to go, and 
used to think about it, and used to anticipate its joys. That 
thing has all cleared out of my life pretty much. I take 
less thought about going to heaven, and less care about 
not going to hell, and think very little about it, and I want 
to think about it less as the days go by. But I will tell you 
what I do think about more. To me heaven is not up yonder 
in the golden city. That is in the dim distance. It is a 
beautiful thing. It is like a pretty picture, but it is some- 
thing that does not satisfy my soul. I will tell you what 
does satisfy it. It is to have a present Jesus with me. 
When I go he leads me. When I sleep he keeps me; when 
I wake he still talks to me. It is a mark of spiritual child- 
hood to be anticipating heaven, and living in heaven, and 
thinking about heaven; be sure of that. I can always 
tell where men and women are; whether they are grown 
up folks or not, by the way they talk about heaven, and 
think about it and want to be there, and all that. 

11 I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand." 

That is very poor. The man that made that did not 
know Jesus, and did not know what the Lord had done for 
him. He may have been a very good man, or she may have 
been a very good woman. I do not want to be an angel. I 
never can be an angel. I am bound to be something better 
than an angel. An angel is nothing but a ministering spirit 
sent forth to minister to them that are the heirs of salvation. 
I might just as well say, I want to be my servant as to say I 
want to be an angel. You get all sorts of blundering notions 
and sit and sing, I want to be an angel, and "Oh, what a 



42 god's love stoky. 

blessed time we will have when we walk the golden streets," 
and " On Jordan's banks I stand and cast a wistful eye to 
Canaan's fair and happy lands where my possessions lie." 

" Oh, could I stand where Moses stood, and view the landscape o'er, 
Nor Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood, could fright me from the 
shore." 

I begin to get rusty in my memory of these songs. 

" When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, 
I'll bid farewell to every fear, and wipe my weeping eyes." 

You are looking at that landscape,and it looks a long way 
off, and you are happy in the thought that some time or 
other you will get there, and so your mind is forever turn- 
ing upon these things. That is very sweet and nice for a 
child. I am sorry to say that most of the songs in our hymn 
books are of this kind. They are fit for the low state of 
Christian life in which I existed for thirty-five years. It is 
no presumption, or self conceit ; it is nothing but pure love 
of Christ that makes me say, Thank God, I have got past 
that. It does not give me any joy to sing those songs. I 
would as soon think of cursing and swearing as to sing — 

" When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies " or, 
11 Do I love the Lord or not ? Am I his or am I not ? " 

That is the kind of songs that are sung in our churches, 
and, 

" Return, O holy dove, return ; sweet messenger of rest, 

I hate the sins that made thee mourn, and drove thee from my breast, 

The peaceful hours I once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still, 
But they have left an aching void the world can never fill." 

Ah, those are devil's ditties. We sing them in our 
churches, and think they are very pious. It is the devil's 
arrangement to keep us down in the lower life ; and keep 



god's love stoky. 43 

us at the milk bottle, instead of taking meat, when God 
wants us to eat meat and grow stronger. Poor souls. Be- 
fore I would give out such songs, or sing them, I would let 
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and my right 
hand forget its cunning. What I want you to learn is to 
learn a better, a higher class of singing, and a higher class 
of prayer, and all these things that are so common in our 
churches ; and so on in our lives ; and I speak as one who 
is perfectly familiar with them all. I have been over the 
road. It is all a part of this wilderness journey. A wilder- 
ness song is not a Canaan song and a wilderness enjoyment 
is riot a Canaan enjoyment. I do not say that in the 7th of 
Romans there are not pleasant hours that we have ; not at 
all ; but oh, dear friends, it is so much below what the Lord 
intended. This is what I want to urge you to come up to 
this life more abundantly for. Jesus Christ came that you 
might have life and life more abundantly ; and while the 
harvest field will give a bare living, and the singing of this 
sort of song will give you some enjoyment, it is not the thing 
that the Lord wants you to do. Ah, my friends, I am sorry 
to say that the song often expresses the religious state, but 
how sad it is for the Lord's dear sake. Do not let us set it 
to music — this condition of our souls. Do not let us bring 
it into the sanctuary and sing it. If you ever hear one of 
those songs given out do not you sing it. Sit with your lips 
sealed, and say praise the Lord ; praise the Lord, till they 
get done singing ; but do not sing those mournful devil's 
ditties, by which he keeps poor children down in the lower 
stage. Take this song: — 

" It is a point I long to know ; 
Oft it causes anxious thought ; 
Do I love the Lord or no ? 
Am I his or am I not. 



44 god's love stoky. 

You know that dear old song of Newton's. You have 
sung it many a time. It is in all your hymn books. Bring 
that down to your lives. Suppose, dear husband, that your 
wives were to get together every Wednesday evening — just 
once a week, we will say, and sing such songs 

" It is a point I long to know ; 

Oft it causes anxious thought ; 
Do I love my man or no ? 
Am I his or am I not ? " 

" Oh, I am so sorry ; I love ten or fifteen other men a great 
deal better than my husband. It is a perfect shame, and it 
grieves me to have to say or sing it. What shall I do ? 
What shall I do ? " 

If you would not enjoy that kind of prayer meeting with 
your wives, tell me how you suppose God enjoys that kind 
of prayer meeting when his blessed children get together by 
the hundred, and say, 

" It is a point I long to know, &c* 

Do you suppose that the Lord cannot be cut with that 
sort of singing? Do you suppose he is not jealous? He is 
ten times more jealous than you are in your affection for 
your wife. Ah, brother ; if you would not like to have her 
sing such songs as that about you, then never sing that kind 
of songs about the bridegroom of your soul. That is the 
reason these services leave us down-cast. Do you wonder 
that these Wednesday evening meetings come to nought, and 
these prayer meetings come to nothing, when they come to- 
gether and listen to that sort of talk, and hear that sort of 
exhortation ? I do not at all. The only wonder is that any- 
body has got grace enough to go and sit through the whole 
thing. The remedy is this : it is to come out of that place 
where we are looking for things, and looking at things, and 



god's loye stoey. 45 

get into the presence of a person. Sooner or later, dear 
friends, the Lord will bring this thing before every one of 
us ; you may be sure of that ; for he gives us all a chance. 
I do not know whether your chance has come to you and 
you have neglected it, and it is gone forever. I know, dear 
friends, that a time came to me when I was no longer satis- 
fied with my religion ; when I was no longer satisfied with 
the attainments that I had made ; when I was no longer 
satisfied with my service ; when I became deeply dissatisfied 
with the gleaning and the beating, and the hot sun of the 
harvest field, and with being careful and encumbered about 
much serving, and the plowing and feeding cattle in the 
field, and waiting on my master until he had eaten his sup- 
per, when my legs were so tired I could hardly stand up, and 
then have him say I was an unprofitable servant. I have 
done that which it was my duty to do, and I said, Is there 
nothing better in Christianity than that? My soul cleaveth 
to the dust. In that way the Lord revealed himself to me 
as something better. He says ; my child, it is your own 
fault. You have set your will against mine thes^e many 
years. I wanted you long, long ago to come up higher. I 
said, Lord, I see it now. It is my fault. It is not your 
fault. It was not written in the councils of God that I 
should wander in the wilderness thirty-five years, any more 
than it was written in God's plan that the children of Israel 
should wander forty years in the wilderness and lay their 
bones there. I dishonored God, and I said u Mea culpa ; " 
and I want to take what you have got. It is my fault. 
That moment I knew the sweet experience of the third 
chapter of the Gospel according to St. Ruth ; and so, dear 
friends, that became the sweet and joyous experience of my 
life ; and I want to tell you a little about it. I passed over 
from the Martha to the Mary state ; from the " careful and 



46 god's loye story. 

cumbered about much serving" to the bosom of his love ; 
and I have been there ever since, and I am going to be there 
until faith is lost in sight ; and I shall see him for myself. 

Dear friends, dear old Naomi finds this out. She eats 
barley, and does not know anything about it ; she has for- 
gotten all about it. Barley is food for horses, and barley 
never would make her find out anything. She is a poor, 
demoralized, gray headed old creature, prematurely so, with 
the marks of Moab upon her. By-and-bye Ruth begins to 
glean in the wheat. That is a different grain. That was 
made for men and women to grow on ; and by-and-bye, 
after she had been eating wheat a little while, she says : 
" Dear Ruth, I have got something better for you than this." 
You don't say, Naomi. Bless her old heart, she turned out 
very sweet, but just at this juncture I felt as if I would like 
to scold her a little for keeping that poor creature down in 
the harvest field. She had just as much right to Boaz before 
the barley harvest was over as after. Ruth's rights did not 
accrue on account of going into the harvest field. No. That 
was a terrible episode in her life, brought about by her own 
ignorance, and especially by the ignorance of her mother-in- 
law. When the devil gets a good hold on us in backsliding; 
after he demoralizes us so we forget pretty much all the les- 
sons we ever learned, we do not know God from the devil, 
down in the land of Moab ; but after a while we get back in 
the land of Canaan, and begin to know ourselves, after we 
have eaten wheat a little while ; and we wake up and find 
where we are. Naomi woke up and found that the child 
was working herself to death, and said : " My daughter, 
shall I not find rest for thee ? not in the harvest field, but in 
the house of him that hath a right to keep thee ? " It is as 
if an owl should come out at nine o'clock in the morning, 
after the birds were all up, and hoot and hoot, " I believe 



god's love story. 47 

the sun is up." That was old Naomi, poor old owl that she 
was. I do not know but that will be reported in the news- 
papers one of these days. It makes me tremble to think 
what they will say I said about Naomi. If you ever see 
anything in the newspapers that is perfectly awful about 
Naomi, remember the worst thing I ever said about her was 
she was an old owl that did not know daylight from dark- 
ness. Bless her old soul, she turned out very right, and all 
is very well that ends well ; and I am glad she came to her 
senses before she died ; praise the Lord for that. Here is 
another thing she says to her daughter, for when she is once 
awake she is wide awake. She says : " Wash and anoint 
thyself, and put thy raiment on and go down and lie at his 
feet when his heart is merry. Lie down at his feet, and he 
will do all the rest for you." 

My friends, we often hear of anxious enquirers. God have 
mercy upon these anxious enquirers. They say you must 
become an anxious enquirer. The devil never put a bigger 
lie in circulation than that. I have got no use for them. 
Thank God in the twenty-seven thousand souls that have 
confessed under my ministry, I have not had five anxious 
enquirers among them all. An anxious enquirer under my 
ministry is absolutely impossible, for there is nothing to en- 
quire about. Preach the gospel so that there cannot be 
anything to enquire about. Poor sinners, say, what must I 
do to be saved, and saints, what can I do to be a better 
Christian ? I am such a poor one, and such a naughty one, 
and, good sir, cannot you tell me how I can be a better one? 
Ah, sister, if you will stop whimpering. You make me feel 
so bad I cannot tell you, and you cannot understand what I 
am talking about as long as you are whimpering that way. 
Why, run into the Lord's arms. You do not mean to say that 
is all ? Yes. I often see Christians come and say, Brother 



48 god's love story. 

Barnes, how do you get it ? How do you get it ? Please 
tell me, Oh, Brother Barnes, please tell me. I say I will not 
tell you a word as long as you do that way. What do you 
deny the good God for ? why you must believe that he kills 
everybody, and that he makes all the sickness in the world, 
and that he is this God that Colonel Ingersoll is trying to 
demolish, and that he has got something against you, and 
that he is keeping you back from a blessing that you are 
very anxious to get, and somehow or other he is not anxious 
to let you have it. Do you not see what a libel that is against 
the good God, and that whimpering bears hard on him ? It 
is ignorance, you may say. Yery well, call it what you like, 
it is not a thing that pleases the Lord, for the Lord is good, 
and he wants to save the sinners far more than they want to 
be saved, and he wants to bring the saints into the higher 
life a great deal more than they ever want to be brought 
there ; and I tell you frankly that I am at war with the holi- 
ness so many people count upon; I am at war with this thing 
of putting the fodder so high that the sheep cannot get at it 
without jumping the legs off of them, and as for the lambs, 
they cannot get enough to save their lives. I believe salva- 
tion was brought down for every sinner in the world. It is 
a free gift, and God goes on to offer the higher life just as 
freely as he offered the lower life. My friends, I am sorry 
to see so many saints wanting it. Why ? Because they seek 
it according to the letter. They go about establishing their 
own righteousness, and do not submit to the righteousness of 
God. The same thing that renews a sinner, the same thing 
that renews a soul forever, will lead a saint to the higher life 
down here. Now, my friends, as long as you treat God as 
if he were holding people away, as if there were only a few 
favored persons that could get the higher life, you are just 
helping that abominable lie of the devil, that God has salva- 



god's love story. 49 

tion only for a few people. As for the rest, they are going 
to hell without the benefit of clergy, and there is no chance 
for them. It is the devil that starts that. It shall be one 
of the joys of my life to preach the higher life down to the 
point where the weakest child can have it. I do not mean 
to say that I have got it as Mrs. Pearsall Smith has got it. I 
do not mean to say that I have made as much progress as 
some other Christians ; but you can be in the life in the weak 
places. It is first the blade, then the ear and then the full 
corn in the ear. I would not say that I am not in the higher 
life because I am not away up yonder on as high a plane as 
those who started many years before me, and have been 
traveling right on. What folly that is ; but I want to en- 
courage you that have been living in the 7th of Romans in 
this lower life, and know what it is to glean and beat in the 
harvest field ; you who know what it is to be careful and 
cumbered about much serving ; I want you to believe that 
the good God stands ready to do it all. All He asks of you 
is, not that you shall leave off this, that or the other ; not 
that you should have a pure life before you get to be pure. 
I believe that is a mistake of these people that entertain 
views of holiness, whereby they are come to live in a sort 
of close corporation, where there is a great temptation to 
be supercilious as to the common herd that do not acquire 
what they call sanctification, and to throw them into a con- 
dition of jealousy if they see you stand on a high place, 
and say, "Come up here: come up here, if you are willing 
to do so, and be happy." I do not care who does this call- 
ing. I do not care what books say of it. Thank God, I 
have had very little to do with books on this subject. I 
have read Mrs. Smith's Secret of a Happy Life, out of which 
I have got some precious things, and except that, thank 
God, what the Lord has given me I got at first hand. I 



50 god's loye stoey. 

have not read Fenelon nor a number of others on it. 
I find these people who have made it up in books are all in 
a muddle, and do not know how to tell it so the poor little 
lambs of the flock can get a nibble of it, and they think 
it is something that nobody can get unless they do some- 
thing great. I preach the life that is just as God says ; all 
you have to do is to be washed by the blood of Jesus 
Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit of God. That is 
the only qualification that is needed for a man or woman 
to go from life to life more abundantly ; and I maintain 
it in the name of the good God. It is not because you 
leave off this, that and the other. I have left off many 
things that the Lord took me in with. In the times of 
my ignorance I did not know they were wrong. I am 
finding out some devil's spawn every once in a while, and 
all I have got to do is to say, Jesus, there is another 
snake ; kill it. And he kills it, for he is sent to bruise the 
serpent's head. The flesh is not dead, I know, and the 
devil is not dead, and the world is not dead. I went in the 
higher life the 25th of August, 1876, and it has been just 
beautiful and glorious since then, so that my whole life is 
filled with gratitude and joy. Think what the Lord has 
wrought ; and I know perfectly that since that time it 
has been a life of growth, and I have left off many wrong 
things. I do not mean to say that w r hen I got into it I har- 
bored a lot of things I knew to be wrong, but I harbored a 
lot of things I did not know were wrong, and as I advanced 
in grace I found out they were wrong ; and that is the 
higher life — to slay everything that is against you ; " Thou 
shalt save alive nothing that breatheth," as the dear Lord 
says in Deuteronomy. Remember this, you can have the 
higher life, the life more abundantly, w T hile you are very low 
down in it. The devil tries to discourage you because you 



god's love stoey. 51 

are not as high as somebody else. He is a liar, my friends, 
just as he goes and says to a sinner, " Now, because you are 
not a good Christian you are not a Christian at all." Don't 
you see what a liar he is. He hides from you the fact that 
God has good children and bad children in the lower life. 
And so, how common a thing it is for a poor, discouraged 
soul to say, " Ah, me, I am not as good as Mr. Smith or 
Mr. Brown, or Mr. Robinson ; I am afraid I am no 
Christian at all." That is from the devil, you see. Where- 
ever a poor child has confessed the Saviour, and has the 
Saviour's salvation, he is as good as the blood of Jesus can 
make him. How many a man has been made sad by the 
devil's traps, whom the Lord has never made sad ; and how 
many struggling lives would have been filled with joy, who 
want this life, and who are actually in it and do not know 
it because they are not away up yonder ; because a child 
three years old has not a full beard and a full set of 
teeth. Remember, in the higher, as in the lower life, it 
is an everlasting repetition of that truth of God as stead- 
fast as the sky, that where we go from one rank to the next 
higher rank it is " First the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear." But is there a time — a moment's 
time, a point of space in which I come out of the lower life 
into the higher life ? Yes, sister, a thousand times yes. 
You do not get gradually into the higher life. You go into 
it just as suddenly as a man goes out of hell into heaven ; 
just as suddenly as you go out of the kingdom of the 
devil into the kingdom of Christ. Dear saint, there is a 
moment's time, a point in space where, from being a child 
of the devil I become a child of God, and there is a 
moment's time, a point of space wherein I change my 
place from the wilderness to the land of Canaan, and 
that is marked by passing over the broad river, and it is 



52 god's love story. 

absolutely certain that it is so. And yet in that higher life 
you may be a poor, weak child. You know they went on 
after blowing the walls of Jericho down, and getting the 
first grand victory, and were defeated at Ai, and Joshua fell 
down on his face, saying, u Is this a life of victory? These 
Canaanites will surely eat us up. They will find out we 
have been beaten." If you think you will not suffer defeat, 
that it is not possible in the higher life, you will find out 
that defeat is very possible ; but if you will be content to 
go on in God's way, you will know you have made this 
transfer. How? By simply saying, I will. You go from a 
child of the devil to a child of God by saying, I will take 
Jesus as my Saviour. The moment's space of time when 
you pass from the lower life to the higher is when you say, 
I will take Jesus as my sanctifier, then confess it. If you 
are not in the higher life, you do not know anything about 
it. I am just as certain of it as that I know my Jesus and 
have walked with him for five years and a half. You say 
first, I will not take Jesus as my Saviour, and then say, I 
will, and you have no right to call yourself a Christian 
until you have confessed him before men. You need 
not say you are in the higher life until you have 
resolved ; and then you will know it in your heart, 
and confess it before men. You will not find a man in 
the higher life who has not confessed it in some way or 
other. Not that I confess it in the Pearsall Smith or John 
Wesley form, but in some form or other. There never was 
a sanctified man that did not confess it. I do not believe 
a word in denial of it ; for, i: If they shall confess me before 
men I will confess them before God and the holy angels." 
He puts that if in before sinner and before saint alike. If 
you will confess that you are saved I will shout it out before 
my hierarchy of heaven; if you will confess that you are a 



god's love story. 53 

sanctified man, I will confess you as a sanctified man before 
my Heavenly Father and the holy angels. Oh, brother, 
that is the way to do it. It is just as simple as turning over 
your hand. All that you have need to do is to be washed 
and anointed. Dear friends, all that a man needs to do to 
be saved is just simply to believe in Jesus and his Saviour; 
to believe that he has died and paid the sinner's debt for 
him, and so to accept the payment and endorse the transac- 
tion. So all that a saint need do, dear friends, is to say I 
am washed by the precious blood of Jesus. I am anointed 
by the blessed Spirit; that is all; to be washed and anointed, 
and then to step right into sanctification. The sinner steps 
right into the little heaven of justification by confessing his 
Saviour's blood as his atonement and cleansing ; and the 
right and title of the saint to step into the life more abund- 
antly is found in the simple fact that he is washed and 
anointed. I am washed by the blocd of Jesus. I am sealed 
by the Holy Spirit, and now I want more; I want not only to 
be sealed with the Spirit, but to be filled with the Spirit. 
Not to be justified. I am that, but I want to be sanctified; 
and all you have to do is to lie at his feet. All you have 
to do is just to drop as limp as a rag, and let go every hold, 
and just drop ; Here I am, and Jesus will do all the 
rest. Never do you worry from that point; only come to 
Him with a willing heart and confessing lips. Oh, so many 
Christians lose their crowns, and so many sinners lose their 
souls forever for not confessing Jesus. Many a man would 
be willing to confess his dear Jesus in his heart, but he is 
ashamed to confess him before men. There is where men 
lose their souls in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a 
little ashamed to confess Jesus before a few people. It takes 
a very little thing to lose eternal life. That is where so 
many Christians lose their crowns. They are afraid to say, 



54 god's love story. 

I am sanctified. I have life more abundantly, because of 
my own free will I have taken it. I want you all to know I 
am a child. For lack of declaring ourselves; for lack of 
courage to confess; for fear of what Mrs. Grundy will say; 
for lack of courage to bear the brunt of what Smith, Brown, 
and Jones will say about them, sinners lose their lives, and 
saints lose their life more abundantly. I am declaring to 
you the tap root of this matter, and I know it just as cer- 
tainly as I know that God is God; Jesus Christ has made 
this the one thing: " If thou shalt confess me before men I 
will confess thee before my Father in Heaven." 

So poor Ruth, washed and anointed, went simply to lay at 
his feet. At whose feet ? At the feet of Boaz. Out in the 
harvest field ? No. What sort of a Boaz? Not the Boaz as 
we see him in the harvest field. That was the kindness of 
the harvest field, to do the best he could for the poor 
gleaner, but Boaz in the joy of the harvest feast, sitting at 
the heap of grain. What does that mean? That tells out 
the glorious condition that now obtains; do you know that? 
Jesus Christ bears two characters. One slain upon the 
cross, and the other raised again for our justification. Not 
justification by the blood, but justification by works. You 
must not confound that with justification by the blood. It 
has got nothing to do with it. Paul talks about the justifi- 
cation that comes from Christ's being raised again; there- 
fore these two characters of our Saviour, Jesus as slain, 
that is Jesus of the harvest field ; Jesus who has saved \ou, 
Jesus who keeps you from hell. But Jesus risen from the 
dead is a different thing. Jesus risen from the dead has 
all power committed to Him in Heaven and earth. He can 
take you up just as you are and put you in this higher po- 
sition and maintain you there against all the hosts of hell. 
The moment you get up there is the moment when you con- 



55 

fess that name. Now you no longer fight with flesh and 
blood. It is now a fight with principalities and powers. 
The stronger you get the stronger your enemies get. Now 
is Jesus risen from the dead who has all power committed to 
him in Heaven and earth. He can take you there and main- 
tain you there. If it were not for that I would go down like 
a set of ten pins before the devil's power, for I know him to 
be a strong man; but thank God Christ is stronger. This is 
not Boaz of the harvest field that can give me an ephah or 
two of barley, but Boaz of the harvest feast; Boaz that can 
give me his heart and home, and let me share his love eter- 
nally; Boaz the strong one; for he has risen from the dead. 

Now, if you have galloped over the Scripture you have 
not noticed this; there is a double feast. Notice it in the 
book of Esther. There is the feast that is given to the 
nobles from the chief estates and principalities that lasted 
for a hundred and eighty days. Then there was a seven 
days' feast that was given to all that were in Shushan, the 
palace; there the sinner's salvation comes out. 

Boaz is sitting at the heap of garnered grain. The har- 
vest of one year does not exhaust the capabilities of the soil. 
You may reap another harvest. Remember, it is beside that 
heap of garnered barley ; it is beside that heap of wheat at 
the harvest feast. That indicates a risen Christ, with all 
power given to him in heaven and earth. Full of the joy 
and rest that belong to him, for his work is finished and his 
harvest is gathered. That year's harvest, at least is gathered. 
That represents Jesus sitting at his Father's right hand. 

Ah, my friends, our people that follow after holiness sing 
altogether too much about the blood. Dear friends, I may 
offend you, but you sing too much about the blood in all 
this hymnology. The devil is in the hymnology. He tries to 
get into everything that is good. It is not the blood that 



56 god's loye story. 

makes me a holy man. The blood of Jesus Christ made 
me a child. I am cleansed by the washing of the water by 
the word. It sounds very sweet and pious to talk about the 
cleansing of the blood, and in every Methodist camp-meeting 
you hear nothing but the cleansing power of the blood. It 
is not the cross that makes me holy. That can never do it. 
The cross brings me to God. The cross changes me from 
a child of the devil into a child of God. The cross is the 
foundation of everything else ; but the foundation is not the 
superstructure. " I saw a soldier pierce his side, and forth- 
with flowed there out blood and water." Not blood only, 
but blood and water. You never forget the blood when you 
are talking about the water. Do I dishonor the blood ? No. 
I honor it more than those who sing these songs, and say 
saints are cleansed by the blood ; who say it is the blood 
that puts a person in the higher life. That is putting his 
blood down on a level with the blood of bulls and goats. I 
beseech you, go to the Scriptures. You cannot find me one 
place where blood is introduced in connection with a person 
in the higher life : you cannot do it. I can show you a 
hundred where the blood is spoken of as a sinner's everlast- 
ing pardon. The blood has one work and the water another. 
Blood and water therefore flowed from the piercing of the 
soldier's spear. If you speak about the blood cleansing you 
in the higher life you are getting into an error; an error is 
always bound to bring bad results. Oh, what a devil he is 
that goes singing about the blood. He is the devil of the 
higher life. Do not be offended against me. I am telling 
you the truth. I am giving you a better thing. 

I want you to stand upon a sure foundation. The devil 
that comes to people in the higher life is the same devil that 
comes with a Bible under his arm, and tells the poor sinner 
he must pray and read the Bible and do a great many things 



god's love story. 57 

before he can be a child of God. The devil is not dead. 
He stands and confronts you. His banner is pitched over 
against the temple gates. I know the gates of Hell cannot 
prevail against God's gates, but still they stand there. We 
must never forget that there is a royal standard and a king, 
and that Jesus is the strongest, though the devil is a strong 
one. I put you on your guard to-day. 

The cleansing of the water by the word, that is the clean- 
sing of the higher life, as the blood is the cleansing of the 
lower life, and if men understood that, all these controversies 
about baptism would cease. The devil has put the water 
question upside down. He has mixed it all up so that men 
do not know what baptism is. They think it is an introduc- 
tory rite, and one large denomination in the Christian Church 
holds that unless a sinner is baptized he cannot be saved. 
Oh, " confusion worse confounded." Dear, good God, thy 
poor children, thou dost pity them to-day. Oh, may they 
hear thy word and learn to discriminate. 

Our blessed Boaz is seated at the pile of winnowed wheat 
and winnowed barley, sitting in the joy of the harvest feast. 
I lay me down at the feet cf the risen Saviour and he does 
the rest. 

Dear friends, at midnight Boaz awakens, and lo, a woman 
is lying at his feet. Ah, that describes the condition of one 
that seeks a place upon the dear bosom of Jesus. It is at 
the midnight hour. The darkest hour is just before day. 
It was midnight in my soul the day before I went into the 
life more abundantly. That was a black midnight in my 
soul and life, but it was the day before the Sun of righteous- 
ness rose with healing in his wings. Do not you be discour- 
aged because you are low down ; because the devil tries to 
persuade you that you never will get life more abundantly> 
He knows you are right upon the very threshold of it and 



58 god's loye story. 

he has a right to try your faith and mine ; he has a right to 
gather clouds of thickest darkness right above your head. 
It was the very midnight hour, and so it shall be, dear 
friends, when the blessed Jesus comes again in the darkest 
period of this world's history, in the darkest period of the 
church's history, when she is rich and increased in goods, 
and knows not that she is poor and miserable and blind and 
naked, in the very blackest midnight of her history. That 
is the way Jesus comes. Do not be troubled by the mid- 
night hour ; it always precedes the glory of dawn. And the 
midnight draws hard upon the morning star. I will give him 
the morning star. I wish you to be the watchers for that 
earlier dawn before the rising of the sun. I will give him 
the morning star. 

He said, " Daughter, you have comforted me; you have 
refreshed me." When I am saved as a sinner, there is joy 
in heaven. Ah, dear Jesus, joy because a sinner turneth ; 
joy in the presence of God when the saint is translated from 
a lower to a higher life. Boaz says, Daughter thou hast 
comforted me ; thou hast given me joy. Thou hast done 
well in that thou hast followed not young men. You have 
given me a deep joy ; and now, my daughter, it shall be to 
thee just as thou wilt, for all the city dost know thou art a 
virtuous woman. There is a kinsman nearer than I, but I 
will settle with him ; and with the earliest dawn to-morrow 
— and before we come to that just let me show you. He 
says, out of tenderness for her character, "Let it not be 
known that a woman was on the floor in this night.'* Busy 
lying tongues will take it up, and the devil is the author of 
all lying, and my dear friends, how many and many a time 
has the charge of lasciviousness and everything that is deadly 
and mean been brought against the character of these dear 
creatures who are only stretching out for higher and better 



god's loye story. 59 

things. That is one of the commonest things of the devil. 
Lying tongues were let loose upon me immediately I got 
better, and since then the devil has deluged the country with 
lies, which fly as thick as hail stones. They lie scattered 
about me as thick as Autumn leaves. Marvel not at the 
fiery ordeal that awaits you. The moment you get a better 
thing, the busy tongue of scandal will take up your name, 
and never let it alone till hell burns out. The devil knows 
if he can once destroy the character of higher life Christians, 
he has done more to kill higher lifeism than would be possi- 
ble in any other way. Those that were filled with the 
Spirit — the hundred and twenty, waited on the dear Lord 
as Ruth did ; just waiting for him to do his own sweet 
precious work, with the assurance that he would do it ; and 
when he did, and came down upon them in power, and went 
to preaching the gospel in all their tongues, the first thing 
that was charged against them was that they were drunk, 
crazy, impure, everything vile. I have been accused of be- 
ing a Unitarian ; been accused of being a Mormon in dis- 
guise ; have been accused of being a Free Lover. Good 
Lord, I can't tell the half the devil has been lying about me 
in the last five years and a half. Well, none of these things 
affect me ; they do not move me. They just flow off of me 
like water from the mane of a lion. Dear, dear friends ! 
do not be astonished if the devil lies about you. 

Boaz was tender for her character, and oh, how tender 
the Lord is of ours ! Let it not be known that a woman 
came into the floor to-night. Then he says, hold your 
veil, and he measures her out six measures of barley ; the 
number of imperfections. He could not give her seven. 
It did not belong to that life. Two ephahs, that will do. 
Two is another imperfect number. Six is a number lack- 
ing, indicating labor — careful and cumbered about much 



60 god's love story. 

serving. The world was made in six days. If he had given 
her seven that would have been a perfect number ; but 
dear friends, he gave her six measures, and said : Take this 
to your mother-in-law. He knew that was the only way to 
give poor old Naomi comfort. She was yet down in a place 
where she was not blind to the munificence of the gift. 
You do not need it, but, dear child, I am not giving you 
this, but I want her to enjoy it. She does not know what 
you are enjoying. Your heart is full. Six measures are 
not needed to fill you ; but go and take it to your mother- 
in-law. That is sweet ; and so the dear blessed Lord 
comes in and gives us comfort as we are able to receive it. 
If six ephahs of barley will fill you up, the Lord will give 
you six ephahs ; but he wants you to have a place big 
enough to hold something else, and so dear Ruth does not 
need the barley. Her mother-in-law says to her, now, be 
quiet. How hard it is at this stage to be quiet, but you 
must be very careful, for "the man will not be in rest until 
he has done it this day." Ten days in the Scriptures are 
days of waiting. As to me, I remember that I waited awhile 
for the consciousness that Jesus came down upon me when 
I first gave myself to him. I know it was over a week 
before I experienced the feeliffg of blessing, or the con- 
sciousness of Jesus upon me. I will venture to say that 
when we get to heaven we shall find that it was for ten days 
that I was waiting. I said, dear Lord, this is according to 
scripture, and I have thy word. I told him I loved him ; 
and I did not feel that there was anybody present at all, any 
more than if I was a block of ice, but I went on to sit 
quietly and wait till the manifestation of his presence came; 
you cannot, by any anxiety of yours, bring it to pass one 
single second sooner. The times and seasons are with Him, 
and all you have got to do is to wait quietly ; wait at his 



god's love story. 61 

feet, always asserting that you are his and he is yours ; and 
pretty soon you will know it in the sweet consciousness of 
his presence. Mine has never left me one moment from 
the time of my consecration, either by day nor by night, 
The last thought I have when I go to bed at night is the 
conscious presence of a living Saviour. The first thought 
I have in the morning is the conscious presence of a living 
Saviour. I am married to him who is raised from the dead, 
as Paul says sweetly in the 7th of his Epistle to the Romans, 
that I might bring forth fruit unto God. Married to him 
who is raised from the dead. Not to the Jesus on the cross. 
Henceforth I know him no more according to the flesh. I 
know him in that higher attitude. Not that I despise the first, 
any more than I despise my alphabet after I am advanced 
in knowledge. That is the foundation of it all. I love the 
cross, but henceforth I know him no more as Jesus of the 
cross ; as Jesus who delivered me from hell and is going to 
take me to heaven, but now I know^ him as Christ risen 
from the dead ; no more crucified in weakness, but raised 
in power committed to him in heaven and earth. 

You will notice that Boaz settled the law question. He 
called that nearest kinsman who represents the law, called 
ten elders, the specific number, and settled that question, 
and right in the presence of those ten holy names, he said, 
Are you going to take this woman for your wife ? Says he, 
I can't do that ; that would mar my inheritance. Well, do 
you give me the right ? I give you the right. I have got 
my wife and my children. I cannot marry her. Then 
according to custom in Israel he drew off his shoe. Those 
were the times of the judges, when every man did as was 
right in his own eyes. If it had been the time of the Kings, 
when God's law had been strictly observed, the woman her- 
self would have come and spit in his face, and said, thus 



62 god's love story. 

shall be done to the man that will not raise up seed to his 
brother. That man, under the old law of the kings, would 
have been known as the man that had his shoe loosed, but 
now, in the time of the judges, he quietly passeth his shoe 
over ; does not appear to do anything more. Boaz said to 
the elders, "Ye are witnesses that I purchased all that was 
Mahlon's and Chilion's. I have purchased to be my wife 
Ruth the Moabitess. He took her to his heart, to his house 
and home. She is the partner of his life henceforth. Oh, 
brother, sister, she is to be the grandmother of David, the 
ancestor of Jesus Christ, God over all, blessed forever 
more. Dear Naomi is to share this joy, and she dandles 
the children of two generations upon her knees ; her own 
life is filled up with the blessing of dear Ruth, the Moabi- 
tess, so degraded in her earlier days ; now risen so high 
because she followed on to know the Lord ; that life of 
hers blessing her mother-in-law more than if she had borne 
ten sons. It is all so lovely — so beautiful. So closes the 
third volume in our little love story. Does not God know 
how to write a book? 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



Our Father." 



[Matthew vi.] 

God's unchangeable love, even to his disobedient children, 
is a fact which the devil seeks continually to hide from us, 
while our Heavenly Father takes special care to represent 
himself to us as loving us always. This is the field of com- 
bat between God and the devil; the devil trying to persuade 
us that God is a hard master, an austere man, taking up 
what he laid not down, reaping where he had not sown, an 
enemy to sinners, looking at them harshly, watching their 
every trip and fall, and taking advantage of everything; 
such a God that He is always looking out and prompt to 
pounce upon us whenever he finds anything out of the way. 
That is the God that satan would have us believe in. 

Our dear Heavenly Father, on the contrary, tries in every 
J way possible, beginning with the grace of His Son, and 
going down to every word that He has uttered in the blessed 
book, to show us that his name is love, and His nature is love, 
and that He is for us and not against us; for us when w T e are 
sinners; for us when w T e are saints; for us from the beginning to 
the end, loving even the vilest men and women that live, and 
telling them that He has good pleasure in them — perfect good 
pleasure in them; pitying us when we fall; loving us just 
the same; loving us all the time; lifting us up when we are 
cast down; the God of all love; that is a sweet title; the 



64 the lord's prayer. 

God of all grace, Grace means loving you when you do 
not deserve it. Another title is " The God who comforteth 
them that are cast down," and winding up with " God the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and you cannot get fur- 
ther than that. That is the blessed God whose love is seen 
in the person of His blessed Son. Who indeed was sent 
down from heaven, not only to atone for our sins, but to 
reveal to us the heart of our God, He who knew him best 
comes down to reveal Him to us perfectly, and so He lives 
before our very eyes. 

He says, I am God. Do you want to know me ? Do 
you see love in me ? Then you see love in God. Do you 
see pity and tenderness for sinners in me ? Then you see 
them in God. I live before your eyes in order that you 
may understand whom you have to worship. And so, in 
this blessed first sermon that he ever preached he repeats 
the dear, sweet, tender name of Father fourteen times, not 
thirteen, not ten, not eleven, not twelve — but fourteen times, 
this divine, human Saviour in the double seven. God's 
perfect number being seven, and twice God's perfect num- 
ber being fourteen, and Jesus Christ who came to reveal the 
Father being divine and human at the same time, God and 
man at the same time, reveals the blessed Father by that 
title fourteen times repeated; just as we have in the ist 
Chapter of John the perfectness in our Saviour revealed 
under fourteen different titles or characteristics, so fourteen 
times the dear Saviour goes over this blessed name again 
and again, in a way well known to us all, repeating the 
.thought that is nearest and dearest to us, that ever comes 
uppermost, for out of the fullness of the heart the mouth 
speaketh, and the word that is repeated oftenest, you may- 
be sure, is the thought that is deepest in the Saviour's heart. 
It is, "Our Father," your Father, my Father — " Our Father 



THE LORD'S PEAYEEo 65 

which art in heaven" — mine or yours, or ours or his, it is 
assuming that we are linked so closely together that the 
devil himself cannot part us. 

I want to speak to you on the sweet, blessed words, " Our 
Father/' These are the first words of what is known as the 
"Lord's Prayer." "Our Father, which art in heaven." 
That is the first thing our dear Lord tells us to say when we 
come to pray to him; but it is the last thing the devil wants 
you to say; or rather, he does not want you to say it at all, 
because if you start out with " Our Father," you start right, 
and you will be sure to keep right, but if you do otherwise, 
you know not where you will go. 

I remember how I used to pray in the olden time, in the 
times of darkness and misery and vicissitudes and penance, 
and feeble service, my knees trembling for very weakness, 
and eyes hardly daring to lift themselves towards the place 
where God's honor dwelt. I remember especially that old, 
long Presbyterian prayer that I used to go over when I was 
a Presbyterian preacher. We prayed a great deal by routine 
in that church, and were required to have a long prayer and 
a short prayer — a short prayer when we first came in and 
a long prayer after that. You have first adoration, then 
confession, then supplication. I do not know exactly what 
they call it. I am forgetting it all now. I remember the 
time when I used to get it all in, just in the way in which I 
had been brought up, after the straitest sect of the Phari- 
sees, for I was educated in Princeton. I will show you how 
I used to pray just to show you what prayer was then, 
and what it is now. I will not do it irreverently. I will tell 
you how I used to begin: " Oh, Lord, Thou art a spirit, in- 
finite, eternal and unchangeable in thy wisdom, being, power, 
holiness, justice, goodness and truth." [I stole that out of 
the third question and answer of our catechism.] That is 



66 THE lokd's peayee. 

» 

all in the book, and has a very rolling sort of sound — very 
good way to commence a prayer. " Oh, God, thou art high 
in heaven, we upon the earth, and therefore our words 
should be few and' well ordered;" [and then I prayed ten 
minutes to show how our words should be few. That sec- 
ond prayer was a very long prayer.] " Oh, Lord, we are not 
worthy to lift our eyes towards the place where thine honor 
dwelleth. Oh, God, we have left undone the things we 
ought to have done, and we have done the things we ought 
not to have done, and there is no health in us. Have mercy 
upon us all, miserable sinners/' [That is stolen from the 
Episcopal prayer book. . That is very good for that style 
of thing. I was just putting it together. It was a sort of 
patchwork.] " Great God, our place is with our hands upon 
our mouths, and our mouths in the dust, for we are not 
worthy to lift our eyes towards the place where thine honor 
dwelleth. Rather should we smite on our breast, saying, 
"God be merciful unto us, sinners/' And so on and so on 
ad libitum. That is just the way the devil wanted me to 
pray, and so I went on, and by the time I got to " Our 
Father," which the Lord Jesus Christ told me to say the 
first thing, when I came to ask for anything I was so very 
far off from Him that I did not believe I would get it, and so 
I did not get what I prayed for. I did not get one thing out 
of a thousand that I prayed for. Why? Because I u asked 
amiss," as James says. That is the reason. I do not know 
whether you have heard such prayers as that. I do not say 
that everybody that prays in that sort of way prays at the 
instigation of the devil. I say the devil had something to 
do with my prayer, for I did not get what I prayed for. If 
you do not get what you pray for you are not praying aright. 
My friends, I hardly ever got what I asked for in my pray- 
er. Why ? It was no more than the barking of a dog. I 



THE lokd's peayee. 67 

was honest too, but that did not secure the answer. That 
is no prayer if you do not get what you pr^y for. You pray 
to the Lord for things which you expect to get, and if you do 
not get them, it is because you do not hit the mark. I do 
not say I was not honest. I followed my Father, and he 
followed his grandfather, and so we all followed one behind 
another like sheep. I prayed as I was educated at Prince- 
ton. Dear friends, I have let fifty thousand souls slip be- 
tween these fingers just by that kind of praying. Now, I 
tell you, I hardly ever ask for anything I do not get. 

If I had done wilfully what I did ignorantly I would have 
been dead long ago, for the devil would have fired an arrow 
labelled death into me. The devil has power to do that. 
But I am here. I did it ignorantly. I am trying to undo 
all the mischief I did and trying to get people out of the 
mud, that are just as deep in it as I used to be ; and, brother, 
unless you want to go on and let your life be wasted, you 
would do well to give heed to what I say. 

The first question I ask you, brother, sister mine, is, do 
you get what you ask for ? Come, let us step down to the 
level of common sense. Do you get what you ask for ? 
You say your prayers a good many times. Do you get what 
you ask for ? If you do not ; then there is something rot- 
ten about your praying, and I want to teach you better if I 
can do it. I can show you how to pray better than that, 
for, before God, I do get nearly everything I ask for. If 
you do not get the secret of prayer and I do, why, my friend, 
act like a common sense business man, just as you would in 
any business transaction. If you find a man successful follow 
the way by which he obtained success. That is the way you 
do in business. • In business you do not follow a fool, that 
would lead you to ruin, when your neighbor at your right hand 
makes money out of the same business. You learn from him. 



68 the lord's pkayer. 

I tell you I am usually successful. I tell you there is hardly 
ever a thing that I ask the dear, dear loving father for 
but what I get it. Do you know how I get it ? I mind Jesus, 
and do exactly what he tells me. I say, " Our Father." The 
first thing learned from that catechism, from that prayer 
book, from this, that or the other theological definition, or 
theological invocation is, that God does not know what sort 
of being he is, and I have to remind Him as to the nature 
of his own being ; justice, holiness and all that. There is 
no good in that, my friend. I am his poor, helpless creature, 
needing to be filled, but God is the fountain of all fullness, 
and what I need is to ask him, expecting to get what I ask 
for, and I get it. Remember, my brother, sister, if you ever 
know how to pray, you will pray just as Jesus tells you to • 
" Our Father," let that be the spirit of your prayer, let that 
be the word of your prayer, let it be an intelligent, " Our 
Father ;" understand what " Our Father" means, and then 
talk to him as our Father. You want no miserable set of 
words that you repeat a hundred times a day. That will 
not do you any good. Oh, dearest Lord, show these people 
the difference between saying prayers and praying. If you 
say prayers you do not get what you want ; if you pray you 
always get what you want — always ; for praying is asking and 
receiving. Friends, you can soon discover when you make 
a failure of your prayers. You do not get much of what you 
ask for. If you pray you always get what you ask for. 
How is it with you, brother ? where do you stand to-day ? 
Does the dear Father hear with his face bending down and 
listening to you ? That is what he does for me. That is 
the simple secret. Jesus told his disciples to say the very first 
word, " Our Father." When you pray, say, " Our Father 
which art in Heaven." Before he says that, he warns them 
against a thing that is very common ; against doing these 



THE lord's peayee. 69 

things openly and ostentatiously, just to be seen of men, as 
the hypocrites. They prayed to get a religious reputation, 
but a religious reputation is a very poor thing, after you have 
it. It is not worth having. They prayed for a religious 
reputation, and they got it. He gives the second thing, and 
says : don't you "use vain repetitions as the heathens do, 
for they think they will he heard for their much speaking ;" 
do not be like them. 

I want to speak a word on the subject of vain repetitions, 
for I have used them many times, and by vain repetitions I 
think God means continually asking God for the same thing 
over and over and over again. I think that is what the 
Lord calls vain repetitions. At any rate, I want to give you 
the benefit of my experience as far as you are wise enough 
to take it. I never ask the Lord for anything but once, and 
I generally get it. In these five years and a half my daugh- 
ter Marie and I have held seventy series of meetings, and 
never had a failure. Some were more successful than 
others, but there has not been one failure out of them all. 
God has given us nearly twenty-seven thousand confessions. 
That is good wages. Xow, there must be something in that. 
That is not the power of man, it was the power of God. I 
never asked God to bless anyplace I have been in but once. 
I take it for granted that God knows what I have need of 
before I ask him. I ask him once in real earnest, and then 
leave it in his hands. To ask him after that is, in my 
judgment, to insult him, and that is the reason people do 
not get the answer to their prayers. I know some women 
that have been asking God to convert their husbands for 
twenty years, but if their husbands ever get to heaven, it will 
not be through theirprayers. Do not deceive yourselves. He 
does not answer prayers that need to be repeated for twenty 
years. But the devil has got this idea abroad that that is 



70 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

the perfection of prayer, nagging on and saying that it is the 
Lord's time and I must be quiet ; laying all the blame on 
God, and then going on and asking him and asking him and 
asking him. They think the Lord is like that selfish judge 
who did not fear God nor regard man, who because a poor 
widow came and nagged him and nagged him and told him 
he ought to do it, at last coolly, diabolically and selfishly 
made a plain statement : " Now, it is a perfect bore to have 
this woman to come to me. I believe I will avenge her on 
her adversary, hecause by her coming she will wear me out." 
Oh, the devil himself could not have got up a more diaboli- 
cal argument than that. And people say the Lord is just 
like that judge. They call that importunate prayer. That 
is illustrated by the man that was lying in bed, and a friend 
comes to his door, and says, " friend, give me three loaves." 
The man says, " I am lying in bed, I cannot get up and get 
them for you." But he keeps knocking and calling on him: 
" I know you have got it ; get up and give me three loaves, 
I will not go, I will stay here all night." "Well," says the 
man, " If that is the way, take your three loaves." That is, 
he would rather give those loaves than have him stay there 
all night. That is God lying in bed and will not get up 
until you importune him. I do not wonder Ingersoll has 
such power. I do not wonder he is stealing the best and 
bravest young men. He has got more influence this minute 
over the rising generation than any hundred preachers in 
America. I am far within the limits. That is the kind of 
God we have been taught to worship, friends. It is this 
God that kills a man every second. Out of the fourteen 
hundred millions of people in the world he kills one every 
second — God sitting with shears in his hand clipping off a 
human life every second snip, snip, snip, as fast as your 
watch beats. Do you wonder that this God is spewed out 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 71 

of the mouths of the rising generation ? Is it a wonder, that 
people called upon to believe in such a God as that, just 
turn away with loathing from him, and like poor Ingersoll 
take refuge in the idea of no God ? From my heart of hearts 
I pity him ; and I say now, with my light, if I had to believe 
on such a God I would rather have none at all — almost. 
That God I was raised on until I was fifty years of age, a god 
that cheated me out of fifty thousand souls, a god that kept 
me penitential more than half my time, a god that did not 
do me any good. How could he ? The stream could not 
rise higher than its source. We are exactly like the god we 
worship. Christianity to-day in the world has got a mighty 
poor god. See the the result of it. Take a city with five 
thousand professing Christians amid forty or fifty thousand 
inhabitants, and how many are converted every year? I 
am just driving at the mark in a free sort of way. But with 
five thousand professing Christians, and twenty or thirty 
costly church edifices, with pastors of rare intellectual en- 
dowments, and all the machinery of church government, how 
many people are converted every year ? That is the living 
question. And while you stand appalled at the net results, 
just think of this great crowd rushing to hell as fast as it can, 
while five thousand Christians stand almost helplessly look- 
ing on. 

Do you wonder that Ingersoll has such terrific power, such 
awful success in attacking such a god ? He is the most 
vulnerable god that you can imagine. You may tear him 
to tatters, because there is no such God as that. That is 
not God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — not at all. 
He that hath the power of death is the devil. The devil 
snips off a soul a second, dead. God does not do it. God 
is the savior of mankind. God comes down into this 
world that is in revolt ; this world from which his Son has 



72 THE lord's prayer. 

been driven out, and on which he has no foothold, except 
as he can gain it in loving hearts, and how hard he tries, 
and how feebly we second his efforts. Think of the millions 
of so-called Christians ; what poor, miserable people they 
are, because they worship a false god. Let us learn to say 
" Our Father," and after you have got that Father through 
and through you, you will never insult him by asking for any- 
thing more than once. My dear Father, you will say, I wish 
you would give this to me if it is good for me. We are not in- 
fallible. We may ask for what is not good, and we will not 
get it ; then say, I am just as much obliged to you as if you 
had given it to me, and when you feel that way you will 
hardly ever ask for anything that is not right, and hardly 
ever fail to get anything that you want. You poor people 
that do not get what you want I call upon your experience 
to-day to testify on my side. I tell you from the depths of 
a sweet and happy experience, I get nearly everything I ask 
for, and I call you to reconsider this matter. No, my 
friends, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do. They 
are full of it. The Hindoo takes out his long strand of 
beads with a long bead at every thirty-three beads, and 
commences ; "r'm r'm r'm. He's nearly asleep by the time 
he gets to 33d bead, and wakes right up and draws a long 
breath and then goes R'm r'm r'm r'm — and wakes up ; and 
that is just the way we say our prayers. That is the way we 
go to meeting. So it is with Mohammedanism and Roman 
Catholicism. The whole world is busy with this many say- 
ing of prayers, which yet is not prayer. It is no part of it. 
Now, my dear friends, here is what God wants us to do ; to 
get right down in your own family circles and learn our 
theology from there. I can learn more theology in one 
week in my family circle than in all the books in the world 
in ten years. I say, How do I want my children to behave 



THE lord's prayer, 73 

towards me ? and then that is the way I ought to behaye to- 
wards God my heavenly Father, for he has given me chil- 
dren in order that I may understand how I ought to treat 
him. How do you want your children to treat you ? 
Mother, do you want your child to come and say, Oh, 
mamma, I want a piece of bread, please. Mamma, please 
give me a piece of bread. Oh, mamma, please give me a 
piece of bread, oh, mamma ! please give me a piece of 
bread ! I am so hungry. They do not get what they want. 
They get a rod instead of a piece of bread. My friends, 
what do you get when you go to the Lord and say, Oh, 
Lord, I want so and so, Oh, Oh, Oh, Lord, I want so 
and so, howling and agonizing — that is what they call agoniz- 
ing. I know the Lord respects an honest, loving heart. I 
do not say that people may not do this in ignorance and get 
blessing, but if they do they get it for the honest, loving 
heart that lies underneath it all. I would to God I could 
strike the tap root of this foolish system. I do not say that 
we have not a Christian instinct that rises superior to all 
these falsities of the devil, and gives us a victory, and some- 
times rare conquests. I do not say that people that do 
these things are not Christians ; No, no ; but I want to strike 
the tap root of all this devilment, because I want to see 
Christians as they ought to be, fair as the Moon, bright as 
the Sun, and terrible as an army with banners. 

The devil snaps his fingers at the church now. He does 
not mind the church. A church does not hurt him. "What 
does he care about the church as it goes on now, saying its 
prayers and not praying ? They say Satan trembles when 
he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. That is nonsense. 
That is not in the Bible. Satan does not tremble at that ; 
he trembles when he hears a Christian say, "Our Father," 
and means it ; but when he hears them saying their prayers 



74 the lord's prayer. 

he snaps his fingers, and says ; " That is not going to hurt 
me any. I taught them that sort of thing." He only trem- 
bles when he sees a man on his knees crying " Our Father," 
calling all the power of heaven on our side in that sweet and 
endearing name, that always brings it down. 

Suppose you had a child, as Mrs. Smith illustrates it in 
her beautiful " Secret of a Happy Life " — Suppose you had 
a child that comes and says, " Mamma, I wish you would 
give your child a piece of bread," and the child goes on 
playing, and mamma forgets all about it for a little while, 
and at last she thinks about it. In a spasm of remorse she 
wakes up and cries, dear me, Charley asked me for a piece 
of bread half an hour ago, and she rushes to the cupboard 
and cuts off a piece of bread twice as big as she would have 
done, and gets jam half an inch thick, and cries, "Charley, 
here is your bread, mamma forgot all about you." The 
little fellow looks up from his play, and says ; " Oh, mamma. 
I knew you w 7 ould get it. I was not in a hurry. I knew you 
would get it for me when you were ready." That is the way 
God asks to be treated, just as you ask your child to treat 
you. You ought to treat Him a great deal better, but I 
speak after the manner of men for the infirmity of your flesh. 
You should treat God a great deal better than you want your 
child to treat you. You will rise higher and higher. That 
will do very well for a start. Use no vain repetitions as the 
heathen do. Ask your dear father for what you need — 
"Our Father, which art in Heaven, give me," — then ask for 
what you want, and take it for granted that His heart is filled 
with love towards you, and then you will get it. 

" Our Father which art in Heaven." There are so many 
things that just open up here, that one hardly knows what 
to speak about first ; there are so many thoughts connected 
with that sweet, tender relationship of a parent and child. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 75 

Do you love to see your children all love one another, peace- 
ful and quiet at home ? Why, then, your Father loves to 
see his children in just the same condition. How do you 
feel when you come home, and John is in one corner and 
Susan in another, and Jane in another, and Jimmy in 
another, and all of them with fingers in their eyes, crying and 
carrying on, and flying at each other? How do you like 
that when you get home jaded with business, wanting to see 
a happy household, all united ? You say : " wife, has the 
devil got into the house to-day ? I will go away, go to my 
business, go anywhere if you cannot train the children bet- 
ter than that ; I hate to come home." But you love to come 
home when your children are all loving one another. How 
do you think our dear Father loves to look down on his 
children, and see them at variance ; Presbyterian against 
Methodist ; Methodist against Reformer, and Reformer 
against Baptist, all going to their different meeting houses, 
costly edifices, built in emulation one of another. One 
builds a fine church ; another one a little finer. That is the 
way things go on. Not in one city but in every city. Oh 
my friends, the legend is that those steeples point like fingers 
to the sky, point poor sinners to heaven, point poor saints 
to heaven. They do no such thing. Do you know how these 
steeples look to me ? They look like the tails of bull dogs 
ready to pounce into each other. Some look like sharp tails 
and some like bob-tails. It does not make any difference 
whether it is a square tower or sharp tower, that is what it 
means ; hatred emphasised in brick and stone and mortar. 
That is what it means, one church fighting against another. 
Oh ! think of God's family in such a condition as that. God 
have mercy upon His poor church. You know I am not 
libelling it. You know I am not saying anything but the 
truth, and .you do not dare to deny it. 



76 THE lokd's peayee. 

Oh, my brethren, I want you to learn the first word that 
Jesus taught his disciples to use. It is "Our." Since that 
sweet word got through me, denominationalism has died out 
of me. Don't you know I love a Baptist just as well as a 
Reformer or Presbyterian ? do you not know I love a Pres- 
byterian just as well as any of them ? love them all alike. 
There is no professing Christian that ever had a hide-bound 
sectarian straight-jacket on them tighter than I have had, 
but thank God the snare is broken, and I am free to-day. 
Do you know what drove the devil out of me? That little 
word " Our." That tells the truth, friends, that we all be- 
long to the same family, and the devil himself cannot divide 
us. We belong to the same family, and blood is thicker 
than water. I remember when I was a Presbyterian, trying 
to build up my church. When the reformers on the hill used 
to come and say: " Brother Barnes, we are going to have 
Brother Lard," and Brother Lard was a big man down there. 
I hated him in my Christian way. Did not like to hear him 
He used to say: "Brother Barnes, he that believeth and is 
baptised shall be saved," and then he would look at me with 
an air of triumph. I will not say how I felt. I did not 
know the meaning of baptism or the scope of it or anything 
of the kind, and I would just walk off like a beaten dog. He 
would beat me in argument every time. When they would 
say they were going to have Brother Lard, I would say, 
Brethren, I hope you will have a good time, and gather in as 
many as you can. I never told a bigger lie in all my life. 
So it was with the Methodists and Baptists. I did not want 
any of them to get any. Did not want them to get ahead of 
me. I wanted to get ahead of them ; and when they would 
have a big meeting, I would send off and get a popular 
evangelist, and manage to keep abreast ; and our good 
Father in heaven all the time was looking down upon his 



THE lord's prayer. 77 

children, and Martha was in one corner and Susan in another 
and Jimmy in another and Thomas in another, and there 
they are at sixes and sevens, and Our Father in heaven look- 
ing down in sorrow, and saying : "What shall I do with my 
children ? My children ! My children ! Oh ! the world 
that is lost in the wicked one I can manage that so much 
better. What shall I do with my children ?" This cry from 
Our Father in heaven has pierced my heart. It has slain 
sectarianism. It has all gone out of me now, and so, my 
Brother, my Sister, I pray God you may be dispossessed. 
The exorcism maybe a tremendous one. You have cherished 
the devil so long, and he has been your bosom companion 
so long, it may be hard to get him out of you, but a bitter, 
terrible exorcism is not half so bad as the evils of a continu- 
al possession. I advise you to let Jesus Christ cast this ter- 
rible devil out, leaving you as the boy in the parable for 
dead. That is the way I was when the devil left me. He 
left me for dead : But I am alive to-day, to live forever, 
amen. The life-giver touched me. 

Brother, Sister, dear, some of you need to have him cast 
out of you. Some of you do not look cheerful at what I am 
saying, but I say these things for your good. Do not scowl 
at me, and not look angry at me. Look into your own 
hearts : see what your own lives are, and let Jesus cast the 
devil out. That is my loving advice to you, I do not know 
whether you are able to bear it. I think the Lord has led 
me to this line of remark, or I would not have made it. I 
hope you are able to bear it. 

The church is doing very little, and this is no secret, my 
dear friends. I was looking through the statistics of the 
Northern Presbyterian Church the other day. Do you know 
they have got nearly 6000 ministers in their division, and 
last year less than 6,000 people were converted. Jesus 



78 THE lord's prayer. 

Christ gave me more than that in less than a year.. Oh, my 
friends, think of that ; think of it tor God's sake. One poor 
bushwhacking evangelist gathers in more sinners in one year 
than all the preachers in a great denomination. Ah, may 
God be permitted to cast out this devil of sectarianism. 
His name is legion; let him go out. "Our Father " will do 
it, for blood is thicker than water. Let that little word come 
in, and out goes the devil. Our Father never meant that 
barriers in the way of stone or brick walls should be built 
between you. Understand this, the children of the same 
Father, that have the same blood coursing in their veins, 
that are going to the same house of many mansions. You 
have the same Father, the same Divine Saviour, the same un- 
dying spirit. Oh, brother, let kinship have its way. A man 
that does not love his kin better than anybody else, I say I 
would watch my pocketbook against him. He would steal. 
God made you to love your kin. A man comes to the door 
and presents himself there, and you say, " good morning, 
what can I do for you ?" Why, Sallie, don't you remember 
your cousin, John Smith, from Missouri ?" " Why, how do 
you do. I didn't know you. I am so glad to see you. 
Have you had your breakfast ? Come into the house, come." 
What is the matter ? She has come across one of her kin, that 
is all. She had no interest in that stranger, but John Smith, 
from Missouri, the minute she knows the same blood runs 
in his veins and hers she welcomes him. Blood is thicker 
than water. God made it so. And so, remember "Our 
Father which art in heaven " just unites us with the same 
blood, and our tie is a very near one. It is the blood of 
Jesus Christ. It is the life of Jesus Christ which we share 
in common. How can you let Satan's wiles keep you away 
from one another? How can you let theological dogmas 
sour your heart against one of your own kith and kin ? 



THE lord's prayer. 79 

Brother and sister, the devil shall never get me down on 
that again. I have set out to love all for the love of Jesus, 
and you cannot, be mean enough to keep me from loving 
you. I will defy you. I have met some very mean Chris- 
tians, and I want to meet some of the meanest kind, just to 
test the matter. I know I can love them all down to the 
lowest drone of a Christian that ever joined the church. I 
can, indeed, because " Our " shows me how to do it, praise 
the Lord. " Our Father which art in heaven." I pray God 
that you may learn the meaning of " Our," that you may 
learn the meaning of " Our Father," 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



Hallowed be thy name." 



[Matthew vi.] 

Dear friends, this is the perfect prayer that Jesus teaches 
his disciples to pray. And mark you, again, this has noth- 
ing to do with the saying of prayers. It is not connected 
with the saying of prayers at all. When you pray say, " Our 
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; Thy 
kingdom come ; Thy will be done," &c. And you 
will find that the petitions which he presents and puts 
in our mouths number just seven, God's perfect number 
again. Fourteen times, or twice seven. He emphasises 
the first word in this wonderful prayer, " Our Father " 
which art in heaven. Twice seven times he lays em- 
phasis upon that, and then when he has directed our at- 
tention to God as Our Father because He is his father, as 
it is said, " I ascend unto My Father and to your Father," 
thus linking our lives with his, and both with the blessed God 
as indissolubly as the live parent and child are linked to- 
gether, then he presents the petition that he wants us to re- 
peat in seven different parts. " Hallowed be thy name, thy 
Kingdom come ; Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our 
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 81 

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil 
one." I am glad our new version has got the correct thing 
on that. There are just seven. Not by any chance, dear 
friends, is it seven. God never does things by chance. It 
is all in perfect order, and the prominent thing in that won- 
derful system of his is the number seven. I want to love 
everything the Lord loves, and to hate everything he hates. 
It is no mere fancy, and the more you understand the Bible 
the better you will understand the divine significance of 
numbers. Here is a simple fact, and all these things are 
based on facts. Everything in the Bible is based on facts, 
and here is a fact you cannot deny — the name of Father 
pronounced just fourteen times in this wonderful first ser- 
mon of Jesus, and the petitions he puts in our mouths num- 
ber just seven. And you will notice there is another divi- 
sion ; three of these petitions have reference to the blessed 
God and four of them have reference to our own indi- 
vidual wants. God always first ; man second. That is the 
divine order. That is the thing that the devil tries to dis- 
turb, putting man and his wants before God ; but God, as 
to his wants, is first, and it is right he should be attended to 
before anybody else. 

Ah, friends, I could show you in many ways how the 
devil disturbs that order, and so brings confusion and 
wretchedness into our lives. Mark you, in the command- 
ments ; even in the law this thing is observed. You have 
all seen the commandments, written on hard, flinty tables of 
stone ; but even there God has the first place. It belongs 
to him ; he ought to have it. Therefore you will find the 
commandments on the first table, four of them have refer- 
ence to God, and the other six on the second table have 
reference to our relative duties — our duties to our fellow 
man ; thus setting forth what Jesus himself sets forth as two 



82 THE lord's prayer. 

things, just in their proper order. What is the first and 
great commandment ? It is to give God his due. What is 
the second ? The second is like unto the first but still in- 
ferior to it — secondary to it ; " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself/' The devil, beloved friends, puts number two 
in the place of number one, and you will find that a large 
part of the religion of the world, instead of giving God his 
due, is engaged in giving our neighbor his due, putting him 
in the place of God, and thus bringing " confusion worse 
confounded " into our lives. Oh, that you would under- 
stand and would la}r to your heart the perfect, systematic 
order that God has of doing everything. Oh, that you would 
learn this divine lesson in divine love that God has given. 
Whosoever is to be neglected it must not be He. If there 
is any one to be neglected it must not be God. To neglect 
others is not fatal. It is hurtful but not fatal, but to neglect 
God is fatal. Learn, then, the order of God's blessed sal- 
vation ; God first, man next. God's glory first ; man's sal- 
vation next. Even our old catechism saw that, when it 
answered that wonderful question, " What is the chief end 
of man ?" It is not simply to save himself. That is what 
the devil wants you to believe — squeeze into heaven. " Oh, 
if /can just get there — " big Me." — God out of the ques- 
tion, not mentioned even ; if I can only get the place of 
door keeper — can only squeeze in by the back door ; if I 
can get anywhere, the least place. Oh, if I can only get into 
heaven." That is as high as you can soar if you are think- 
ing exclusively of self, but even the catechism knows better 
than that. " The chief end of man is to glorify God," and 
your enjoyment comes secondary to that. How this lesson 
is stamped on every part of the blessed word, stamped on 
the Lord's prayer — for it is the Lord's prayer. Ah, yes, in- 
deed, it is a prayer that none could have given but the 



THE lord's pkayek. 83 

blessed Saviour. Oh, God teaches us to pray, not to say 
prayers, as John also taught his disciples. Jesus said, when 
you pray, first of all say "Our Father." That we have al- 
ready discussed. 

Let me now call your attention to the first petition in the 
Lord's Prayer. " Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed 
be Thy name" Now, the devil has just eliminated all 
meaning from this with saint and sinner. I want to show 
you how he has done it. " Hallowed be Thy name." What 
does that mean ? It means, you say, you must not swear, 
"You must not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" 
corresponds to that, and what do you mean by that ? Man 
has that changed. He says, " The Lord's name is a very 
holy name, you must not speak it lightly ; you must be very 
careful how you speak it, and always speak it with a very 
solemn emphasis. The devil wants to make your religion 
such a solemn thing. Oh, he is a solemn devil. Of all 
things, God deliver me from a solemn Christian. I will 
take to my heels and run as hard as I can whenever I see a 
solemn Christian. Why, my friends, solemn Christians 
nearly drove me to infidelity. Solemn Christians drove me 
at bay when I was 14 so I was ready to curse God. Solemn 
Christians nearly killed what little religion I had when I 
was first converted — that pious old deacon that said : " Boys, 
I don't think you ought to laugh so loud now you have made 
a profession of religion." Solemn, very solemn work, isn't 
it, to eat a piece of bread when you are starving to death ? 
Very solemn to take something which is going to nourish 
you forever ? Very solemn to put on clothes when you are 
naked ? Very solemn. Oh, God deliver you from the solemn 
devil. I am not going to preach about solemn religion. 
None of that for me. I have done with solemn religion. I 
will tell you what it does. God has given us a very sweet 



84 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

little song like " Old Hundred," and then we set it to an old, 
long metre tune. It is a cheerful, bright, crisp, merry song. 
It is " Praise the Lord, and laud him all ye people, enter 
into His court with thanksgiving." Oh, be joyful in the 
Lord — but I will tell you how we sing it : " Praise — God 
from — whom — all — bless — ings — flow" — I am glad to break 
down. I am glad I could not get through the first line. 
That is your solemn religion. Think of the praises of God 
set to an old long metre tune. I do not care who wrote it, 
Luther or anybody else, the idea of setting God's praises to 
an old funeral dirge. Play that on the organ, and you will 
get the people in a first class attack of low spirits before 
they can get out of the house, and they will feel as if they 
were dead and buried never to be resurrected. Don't I 
know what it is ? Yes, indeed ; a funeral dirge, that is 
what the devil has made of it. Praising God in long me- 
tre, who ever heard of such a thing? that is the devil out 
and out ; that is the part of the solemn, solemn, solemn devil, 
and so he comes and gets Christians to put their religion 
into long faces, and the moment you mention the subject of 
religion down goes every face ; no more smiling. Don't you 
crack a smile till you get done talking about religion. It is 
the devil's solemnity, and is about all the religion I see on 
many faces. I do not see souls saved. I do not see active 
churches. I see the devil having his own way, riding over 
everything rough shod. Five thousand Christians and not 
saving a hundred people a year. Whenever you talk about 
religion down goes the mouth as though you were at a fun- 
eral. That is not religion. That is not hallowing the name 
of the Lord. I remember a dear little girl, who was con- 
verted in Danville, went down to see her old aunt in the 
country. She said " Praise the Lord" many times a day. 
That was her life, and she went around " praising the Lord" 



THE lord's prayer. 85 

for everything. Her aunt did not like to talk to her about 
it for the few first days. She had not seen her quite a 
while, but one day she could stand it no longer. She was 
an elder's wife, and had been raised under this devilish 
solemn religion, and she took her in the room one day and 
said, " Daughter, I don't want to hurt your feelings at all, 
but do you know I would not take the Lord's name in vain 
the way you are taking it for anything in the world." I sup- 
pose the poor old frost bitten creature had not taken the 
Lord's name, except to sing it in the Doxology, three times 
in her life, and she hallowed the Lord's name so tremend- 
ously that she never opened her lips to pronounce it. You 
can have any religion you like, but that is not the kind that 
makes me happy or useful. My religion makes me love 
one sweet little word, and that is, " Our Father. Are you 
afraid to say " My Father ?" Does a child that is hungry 
and wants something to eat come into the presence of its 
parent and stay off from her mother as far as she can get, 
and draw down the corners of her mouth, and say, " Oh, 
mother, you are so wise and I am so foolish. Oh, mother, 
you are so good and I am bad. " Oh, mother, I am not fit 
to be your child or say a word to you, but won't you please 
give me a piece of bread ?" How would you like that out 
of your children ? I would spank them double quick if they 
would talk to me in that way — certinly you would. If you 
do not want your children to play the fool in that way, 
don't you talk to your Father in that way when you come 
into his presence. His name is Father. He has revealed 
that blessed name in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, 
who lay in the bosom of his Father, and came down into 
this world to reveal his Father. Were the disciples afraid to 
mention his name ? They slept with him, ate with him, 
loved him. That is what God wants you to do ; treat him 



86 the lord's prayer. 

as you want one of your children to treat you. Oh, what a 
wretched parent you would be to see your children moping 
away as the good God sees his children moping. Ah, the 
terrible old French wit that saw all this diabolical, Pharisaic 
holiness, this counterfeit religion, and he saw it the world 
over, and he saw nothing but that scarcely, except here and 
there one and another that did not do that way — but the re- 
ligion of the whole religious world consisted in such things 
as this ; and the old wretched heathen of a French wit 
makes the " Bon Dieu" the " Good God," looking down 
upon his children, say : " Ah, my children, if I know what 
you are at may the devil catch me." It is blasphemous, 
certainly it is, it is horribly witty, yes, it is terrible, but that 
is exactly the Lord looking down, perfectly lost. He does 
not know what to do with his children. He does not know 
what they are at ; does not know what they are after ; does 
not know what they are doing. "I never knew you," Jesus. 
Now, dear friends, I want you to understand as far as I 
am able to tell it to you to-day, what hallowing the name of 
the Lord means. " Do not take His name in vain;" it cor- 
responds to that, I grant you, and what do you mean by 
taking his name in vain ? It means swearing and cursing, 
you say. Oh, nonsense, that will apply to a very small por- 
tion of the human race, my friends. While there is a large 
class of even the wickedest men that are too gentlemanly to 
swear, it is such a dirty habit that you will only find the 
lowest class of people with very low instincts that will in- 
dulge in that. A thorough gentleman will not swear on 
simply gentlemanly grounds, because there is no sense in it, 
there is no wisdom in it, and there is no good breeding in it, 
and he is a gentleman and he will not swear. Oh, friends, 
that is not taking the name of the Lord in vain. A sinner 
cannot take his name in vain. They may blaspheme thai: 



THE lord's prayer. 87 

holy name by which we are called, but they cannot take the 
name of the Lord in vain. None but a Christian can do 
that. The law was given to a redeemed people, and only a 
redeemed people can take the name of the Lord in vain, 
and this prayer was not for the world. Oh, said his disci- 
ples, teach us to pray. Jesus never taught the world to pray, 
because they had not anything to pray about, but when you 
are his disciple and his child, then God teaches you to pray, 
u Hallowed be thy name." A child of the devil cannot take 
the Lord's name in vain. He can only blaspheme, but a 
child of God can take that name in vain ; but you see the 
craft of the devil in all this. He wants to make you believe 
that taking the Lord's name in vain is swearing, and that 
hallowing the Lord's name means hardly ever pronouncing 
it, and then pronouncing it as if you are afraid of him. Ah, 
what a devil that is. That is not hallowing the Lord's name 
at all. You are a Christian, are you not ? I am not asking 
you whether you are a Baptist or Presbyterian. You are a 
Christian. What does that mean ? That means you have 
got Christ's name upon you. You are a Christian. You are 
God's man. You have got the name of the Lord upon you. 
Then do nothing that will bring reproach upon that holy 
name ; that is hallowing his name. Do not do anything or 
say anything that will dim the glory of that blessed name. 
Do not allow anything in your life that will bring reproach 
upon that holy name. Do not harbor any devilish dispo- 
sition that will dishonor that blessed name. Do not allow 
any reproach to come upon you who bear that holy name ; 
that is the meaning of it, if I know anything about the mean- 
ing of words. 

Ah, you see, Christians are very well content to admit the 
meaning of this petition when they think it does not bear 
hard on them. How could they come and say, " Our Father 



88 THE lord's prayer. 

which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," and not make 
it mean anything? If you ask the reason why I make that 
petition, I say, I want to receive it, and now, by God's sweet 
grace, henceforth, nothing shall come into my mouth or on 
my tongue, nothing shall ever be said by me that will bring 
reproach on that dear, dear name. To receive that petition 
would cut your bad temper by the roots, throw your tobacco 
out of your mouth, and your cigars and whiskey. That 
would make you clean Christians. Christians do not want to 
pray that way, that is the difficulty. It goes down too deep 
in their lives, but Jesus teaches his disciples to pray just that 
way, "Hallowed be thy name." First to know the name; 
first distinctly to understand it, repeated twice seven times, 
and then to hallow it ; to be a child worthy of your Father. 
Ah, my friends, how many a grand name has gone down to 
unworthy descendants. How little the descendants of 
Webster keep up the family name ; the descendants of Clay, 
how they drag that honored name in the dust, and so there 
is hardly a grand name in all history but some miserable 
descendant has dragged it down into the dust. Hallowing 
the name means to do nothing that will dishonor it. Ah, 
dear friends, you expect of the son of a great man more than 
you expect of the son of a small man. The reason preachers' 
children are supposed to be worse than any other children 
is not because they really are worse. I was not any worse 
or any better than boys of my age, but then people expect 
more of a minister's son. 

Ah, dear, dear friends, you are the children of a heavenly 
Father. Are you hallowing his name to-day ? How I pity a 
father when I see a young man across the street staggering 
along, and I say, who is that ? and he says, " I am sorry to 
say it is my son." I have driven a bullet right through his 
heart. I wish I had not said a word. I did not want to cut 



the lord's prayer. 89 

the man's heart in two, but I have done it, done it unwit- 
tingly. He says, "that is my son, sir, I am sorry to say," 
and the hot blood rushes up to the very tips of his ears, and 
the poor head is hung in shame, for a son can disgrace a 
father, and, mark you, this disgrace comes upon the other 
children alike, but it settles more keenly on the father. He 
is the one whose very heart is cleft in twain by a dishonoring 
child. Oh, how sorry I am for a man or woman that has a 
bad son or bad daughter. Oh, how it tears the household 
to pieces. Oh, how it " brings down the gray hairs with 
sorrow to the grave." That is what bad children do. Now, 
my friend, you are the child of the father. You are the 
child of a loving father that keenly feels every disgrace that 
you put upon his name. Ah, when I found out the meaning 
of " Our Father," that killed sectarianism. Since I found 
out the real meaning of " Father," I have lifted my right 
hand to heaven and sworn by Him that liveth for ever and 
ever, that I will never do anything to bring reproach on that 
dear, dear and precious name. That is one thing that I 
shrink back from with unutterable horror — to say anything 
that will dishonor My Father ; to do anything that will make 
him blush for me. I have been a bad child long enough ; 
until I was fifty. I am going to be a good child from this 
out. I am not asking you to take a petition upon your lips 
that I do not observe myself. I am not preaching to you 
above my own experience. I know the meaning of this 
petition. " Hallowed be thy name." I have got out of the 
folly of thinking it means cursing and swearing. God never 
says to Christians I do not want you to curse and swear. 
He takes it for granted that his children will not do that. 
He has not the remotest reference to that, but the devil puts 
it all in that one place, and so has cheated God out of the 
glory of it " Hallowed be thy name " simply means nothing 



90 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

with ninety-nine out of a hundred. The devil has robbed 
it of all its meaning. I pray God it may come back to its 
place in your lives. " Hallowed be thy name/' And so, 
dear friends, we hallow the name of our Father when first 
we recognize the love that is in him ; that is the first thing, 
" God is love." That is his title. " God the Father," "God 
is love," these are synonymous, for a Father's heart is a 
heart of love, and a father is love and love is a father, and 
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth 
in him. Brother, sister, we hallow the name of the Lord 
when we recognize the love that there is in him ; the love 
that watches over our every footstep; the love that takes the 
tenderest care of us ; that love that pervades everything ; 
the love that knows the things that we have need of. 

My friend, are you hallowing the Lord's name in recog- 
nizing the love that is taking care of you ? Good sister and 
good brother are you " careful for nothing," as the Lord says, 
" Be careful for nothing, but in everything with thanksgiving 
make known your requests unto God — by prayer and sup- 
plication making known your requests unto him." Sister, 
you know you are careful. Brother, you know you are 
careful ; careful about what you will eat and what you 
drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed. Yes, indeed, 
the bread and meat question will come in so often, and 
therefore he strikes that one thing right in the face. That 
is the care of ninety-nine hundredths of all the Christians 
that live in the world, because ninety-nine hundredths are 
poor, and the rest of them ought to be poor if they want to 
live within the reach of that sweet word, " Give us this day 
our daily bread." Fear not. Blessed are ye poor, for 
yours is the kingdom of heaven. And whether they want it 
or not, ninety-nine hundredths of them are poor as poverty, 
and this ninety-nine hundredths are careful about what they 



THE LORD'S PEAYEE. 91 

eat, and what they drink, and what they put on, Just 
think of it, the little birds do not sow or reap, or gather 
into barns. It goes through my heart in the tenderest 
way when I go into the forest and see them. There is one 
of God's barns for a little bird. There it is hiding under a 
chip, or getting on the leafy limb. When he wants break- 
fast he goes out and nibbles a berry, and when he wants 
dinner he goes to God's barn. He has strung them all 
through the forest. If he could provide for the sparrow 
could not he provide for you ? " Oh, ye of little faith," 
** think of the lily, how it grows, it toils not, neither does it 
spin," and ah, dear friends, "'even Solomon in all his glory 
was not arrayed like one of 'God's lilies.'" Why are you 
troubled about what you put on your back ? Ninety-nine 
out of a hundred Christians are troubled about what they 
eat and drink, and wear, and " Bon Dieu" looks down from 
heaven and says, "My children, I do not know what you 
do. You puzzle me, my children, I do not know what 
sort of children you are." Children that are afraid their 
father will let them come to want ; think of that ! I go to a 
little boy and say. " Little boy, did you have your breakfast 
this morning ? Yes, I did. Had your dinner ? Yes. 
Ah, but, my boy, look here, you are not going to get any 
supper. Yes, I am. Why, no, what do you mean ? Why, 
I am bound to get my supper. How do you know, my 
son ? Why, father gets it and mother gives it to me. That 
is right, boy, it is your mother's and father's business to 
take care of you, but what are you going to do when those 
shoes give out ? Why, my father buys more. Very well, 
my son, you have got more sense than these frost-bitten 
Christians, who are afraid when the day's provisions give 
out." The poor little friendless orphans I and ,k Le Bon 
Dieu " looks down from heaven to the earth and says, "You 



92 THE lord's peayee. 

puzzle me ; I ne^r saw such a lot of children as I have." 
Ah, good Lord, I am glad the old heathen, Beranger, said 
" Bo?i Dieu ;" but he had an indefinite idea that there was 
a good God, and here were his naughty creatures, and they 
were doing Ml sorts of foolish, contradictory things, and the 
old infidel gave God the right name. He was the " Good 
God," but was so puzzled about his bad children. I hope 
we may learn a lesson from the old scoffer to-day, who 
called God by the right name, "Good God," and called the 
children by the right name, "Bad children." 

How does it come that you are careful for anything at all ? 
when God has told you to be careful for nothing ? How 
dare you be careful ? That is what I want you to think 
about. It is a commandment as well as "Thou shalt not 
steal." If you were to put your hand in my pocket and 
steal a dollar it would get on your conscience. " Oh, 
Brother Barnes, do you think I would steal, I would rather 
let my hand burn off ; " why ? Because the Lord says "thou 
shalt not steal." How does it come that you break his 
other commandment ? The same God that says " Thou 
shall not steal " says " thou shalt be careful for nothing." 

You are breaking God's holy commandment every day, 
sister, brother. How does it come that it never gets on 
your conscience ? It looks as if conscience was seared with 
a red hot iron ; no feeling at all. You never allow your- 
selves to think about it, and you go on careful and troubled 
about many things. Oh, Martha, you have not got the good 
portion. I do not mean to say you are not going to heaven. 
You are going to "save your soul," of course, but that is 
not the better portion. That is good enough in its way, 
but it is not the better portion. The better portion is glory- 
fying God, and enjoying him for ever. 

Dear Father, what a lot of naughty children thou art look- 



THE LOKD'S PKAYER. 93 

ing down on this day, the Baptist child, the Presbyterian 
child, the Methodist child, the Lutheran child, the Catholic 
child. Brethren, I want to speak these words plainly and 
faithfully. There is an evil under the Sun. How can you 
and I ever expect our Christian lives to flourish ? 

Do you not see the reason why you are such a poor Chris- 
tian ? breaking God's solemn commandment in Christ every 
day that you live. Oh, brother, sister, I pray you see the 
love in the name of God to-day ; a love that is deeper than 
your love for your children — a father's love. You take care 
of your children and clothe them. Have not you a father ? 
Are you a little foundling without anybody to take care of 
you ? Oh, a thousand shames on us, Brother, for very shame 
let us do better* Shall we not ? How can you look up into 
the good God's face ? Oh, say, by God's sweet grace I will 
never be careful for anything as long as I live. Not for 
children, nor for husband, nor for father, nor for bread, nor 
for anything I will put on. I rejoice to hallow my father's 
name. " Hallowed be thy name." 

There is another belief under the Sun as to hallowing the 
Father's name. I go among Christians a great deal and see 
a great deal of it. I notice they are carrying great " bur- 
dens" around saying, that they are " weary and heavy laden ;" 
and I say, " What are are you doing, sister ? " " I am 
fighting the good fight of faith." Well, the devil has got 
you down on your back, and the shield of faith is flying out 
of your hand, and you have no helmet on your head. You 
have not the whole armor of God ; you have not the helmet 
of salvation. Not the sword of the spirit, that is, the word 
of God in your hand ; you do not know how to use it. Do 
not call that the "-fight of faith." It is no such thing. 
When I find Christians wherever I go weary and heavy 
laden, crying "Jordan is a hard road to travel," climbing 



94 THE loed's pkatee. 

up Zion's hill, saying "it is a hard thing to be a Christian ;" 
" Oh, to be at rest ; " " Oh, if I had the wings of a dove I 
would fly away and be at rest." The only reason they want 
to get to heaven is it is so hard getting along down here. 
It is very sad. Nine Christians out of ten are carrying use- 
less burdens. I am not libeling them. I am keeping far 
within the limits. 

Let me tell you a little secret. The Lord never laid a 
burden upon one of his children that the child could not 
bear. Dear friends, I will tell you what you have been 
doing : you have been letting the devil burden you. He 
will clap a burden on you that will crush you if he can hold 
it upon you ; a yoke that will gall your neck every time you 
put it on. "My burden is light." Is his burden light? 
Does your " life flow on in endless song above earth's lamen- 
tations ? " If it does not you are not hallowing the name of 
your Father, because that Father is too kind ever to lay a 
burden upon you such as you complain of. That is not the 
Lord's burden ; it is the devil's burden, and it is crushing 
the very life out of you. You will go to the church yard 
before your time, and it will be written on your tomb-stone, 
" Age thirty-five," " forty-five," " fifty-five." The devil has 
cheated you out of twenty or thirty years of your life that 
God promised you. I could not live to seventy-five, eighty, 
perhaps ninety years, and then be snuffed out without pain 
or disease if I carried a burden. You do not suppose I am 
going to let the devil kill me with rheumatism, typhoid fever, 
or any such disease as that. Not if I know myself. It shall 
not come if I only "walk in his way and keep his statutes," 
and that is what I propose to do. Oh, dear friends, do not 
die before your time. Do not let the devil crush your life 
out. I have got a panacea, that is to hallow my heavenly 
Father's name. I claim before God to-day that there is this 



THE loed's pbayer. 95 

simple agreement between my Heavenly Father and me, 
that I never will do anything I do not want to do, and I 
never will, so help me God. I will never do anything I can- 
not do and do easily. If I had to drag myself up by the 
hair of the head in order to do this work I would think it 
was the devil's work, and I would stop right away ; not an 
inch would I go until the yoke was easy. I visited one of 
the most brilliant preachers of this country in his native 
State. When it was time to go to church, said I, u It is time 
to go to church, the last bell has rung." He had a splendid 
church and a splendid library of three or four thousand 
volumes. He is a popular man. He began to throw off his 
dressing gown. " You lazy scoundrel, put your coat on and 
go up and grind away, Samson. You are paid five thousand 
a year for it ; go along ; " and he kicked himself in a mock 
way, and up he went into the pulpit and preached a magni- 
ficent sermon, after he went out in that way. Coming out I 
heard people say the sermon was beautiful. If they had 
heard what I had they would not have thought so. Thank 
God he has got over that now. He does not have to drag 
himself up by the hair of the head to the pulpit. 

Oh, do I not know how it made the cold sweat stand 
out on me when I had to do my duty. I would do it if I 
died, Ah, my friends, no more of that for me. I am hal- 
lowing his name to-day, and the man that hallows his name 
never serves him that way — God have mercy upon the poor 
miserable victim of duty. If I have been away from home 
and come back and say to my wife : "Wife, I have not seen 
you for two or three weeks, but I thought I would come 
home and see you, I thought it was my duty to do so, would 
she like that ? A man's duty to love his wife, a man's 
duty to go and see his wife, that is beautiful. " A man's 
duty tc serve a God that sent his Son to die for him." 



96 THE lord's prayer, 

A man's duty to follow Jesus Christ. " Love him be- 
cause it is our duty." That is a beautiful thing, isn't 
it ? It is enough to make one sick. Duty ! I would 
rather at this minute to be buried a thousand fathoms 
deep than to serve the good God from a sense of duty. 
How I despise the cold word. I do not want to do any- 
thing I do not do cheerfully. Ah, my soul, thou hast learned 
his name. Thou art hallowing his name. Thou knowest 
thy father will never lay on thee anything but what is easy 
to bear. Does a father living in the country go to his little 
boy five years old and say : " Now, my son, just pick up 
that two bushel bag of wheat and throw it on your 
shoulders and go to the mill ?" Does he say that to a child 
five years old ? Why, no. Does he lay a burden on a little 
fellow like that ? Why, no. Does a father come to a child 
five years old and say : You have got to get up in the morn- 
ing and make all the fires and groom the horse and feed the 
cow, and black my boots, and if you do not do it I will 
punish you* 

Why, they would lynch him in Kentucky. If he lived in 
Morgan County, the " Regulators " would hitch him up to 
the first limb, and he would be dead in fifteen minutes — a 
man that would serve his child in that way. 

You Christians say : I am so burdened. It has pleased 
the Lord to lay a heavy burden on me. The Lord never 
had anything to do with it. He never laid a burden on you 
that made you cringe. Ah, my friends, it is so much easier 
to charge God, and lay all blame on Him than to take any 
blame ourselves ; this self-excusing, God-accusing religion, 
is in the churches, and that is the reason Ingersoll hates 
God as he does, and fights Him as he does. I only wonder 
that somebody did not do it before. This cruel God ; this 
God, as Robert Ingersoll says, to whom his children stretch 



THE LORD'S PRAYEK. 97 

out pleading hands and breaking hearts in vain. No answer 
comes. It is false. I have a dear, loving Father in heaven 
that gives me everything I want. That does not touch my 
God, but it does touch the God of Christendom. Breaking 
hearts and pleadings hands are stretched out in vain to the 
God they worship — that is the devil enthroned in God's place. 
You are not hallowing God at all. You do not recognize 
the love there is "in the name of God. If you treat God 
that way, of course you cannot expect the blessing of God 
upon you. 

The devil is very cunning in this matter, because there 
are things in the Bible that if put upon a little child would 
crush him flat, and the Lord does not intend that such 
a burden shall be laid on the child ; but when the boy gets 
to be twenty-one ; when he is a grown man, the earthly 
parent says, " My lad, put that on your shoulders," and the 
great, square-backed lad puts it up there with perfect ease. 
He tosses it up, delighted to show his strength. He is a 
man, every inch of him, and that is man's burden. He is 
not shirking things. He is not afraid to lift a man's burden. 
God never lays a man's burden on an infant. When you 
are a child he expects you to speak as a child and think as 
a child and understand as a child, and when you get to be 
^a man to lay aside childish things. I rejoice in God's 
work. It gives me abundant occupation, and keeps me up 
to the full measure of a man's strength. It is a compliment 
for my dear God to lay a burden on me, and it says, " you are 
getting along ; getting to be a good, strapping, strong fellow, 
and I am going to put a little more on you. Yes, Dear 
Lord, and you will never put more on me than I can stand, 
and I love to do what you want me to do. I have lived 
that life for five years and a half, and my life has flowed 
on in endless song. Not a cloud above, not a spot within. 



98 THE lord's prayer. 

Just hallow your Father's name and it will all come just as 
I tell you. Only believe in the love of the Father's name, 
then believe in the power of it. Ah, brother, that is another 
place where people fail. They are afraid that if they 
cast themselves upon God He will let them down hard. 
My friends, that is the reason people will not come up to 
be cured of the diseases of their bodies. It is not because 
they are not sick. It is not that you don't need the great 
physician, but you say, I am afraid. Suppose I do not get 
over my illness, won't people laugh at me ? Ah, "suppose." 
As the old colored woman says, "Dem s'poses is what 
makes you misable." Do you notice, people never suppose 
on the right side ? They are always supposing in the wrong 
direction. You never heard a man say, suppose God keeps 
his word ; suppose God makes me well. I suppose God 
means something when He says something. You never 
heard a man suppose that way in your life. I have resolved 
whenever I suppose'any thing to suppose in favor of God. I 
have given the devil the inside track long enough on that, 
and whenever I suppose from this time on, it shall be a sup- 
position in favor of God. It shall not bear down on his power, 
which is unlimited. There is nothing which insults the 
good God so much as to doubt his power. If we come to 
him and say "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." 
Oh, says the dear Savior, if that is the only thing, I will do 
it right off ; but when you say, "Oh, Lord, if thou canst do 
anything for us, help us" — that was the cry of the man with 
the lunatic son. Jesus turns coldly to him and says : " If 
you can believe, all things are possible." 

Whenever you dare to say he could not do it, that is an 
insult. You may insult him by saying you do not believe 
he is willing, but I warn you, don't you dare to doubt God's 
ability to do anything. If you do it will be the fatal point in 



THE LOKD'S PRAYER. 99 

your life ; fatal to your happiness, fatal to your health, fatal 
to something or other. It will slay something in you. It 
may not send you to Hell — it will not, if you area Christian. 
"If thou wilt thou canst;" that is all right. He treated that 
as a compliment. Says he, I will. If you say : "If thou 
canst, oh do something. " He will say, " I can't do any- 
thing till you trust me." These things seem to come into 
the Bible as mere collaterals, but my friends, I tell you they 
are the very center of religion. That is the very spinal 
marrow of the gospel of Jesus Christ, believing power. Oh, 
in God's name, how shamefully his children treat him. Oh, 
" Bon Dieu" j Good God, you are looking down on your 
children and do not know what they are doing. 

Dear Brother, Sister, do not be among those bad ones. 
Learn to hallow the blessed name of God, and to know the 
love in that dear name, and the power in that dear name ; 
never doubting It. So shall your life be filled with joy. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



" Thy Kingdom Come. 



[Isaiah xxxv.] 

I wish to call your attention to the second petition in the 
Lord's Prayer. I do not know whether you have noticed 
it all, but all these petitions are higher life petitions ; that is, 
none can offer the Lord's Prayer intelligently unless they 
are walking in the light more abundantly. Do you know 
that? It does not matter at all that people say it four or 
five times in the Episcopal service, or say it once at the end 
of every prayer in the Methodist service, or say it ten thou- 
sand times. That is of no importance. The fact is, that 
none can intelligently offer the Lord's Prayer unless they 
are walking in holy fellowship with the Father. Every peti- 
tion in it is a higher life petition ; and that is exactly what 
Jesus wants us to be — higher life Christians. Teach us to 
pray. You pray for something you have not got. What 
have you got? You have got salvation ; you have got the 
place of children ; you have got eternal life without a draw- 
back ; you have got a title clear to mansions in the sky. 
Very well, what more do you want ? I want to walk accord- 
ing to that petition. You have not got that, have you ? 
No. Well, then, ask the Lord for it. That is the Lord's 
Prayer. You never ask the Lord to save you in the 
Lord's Prayer. You never ask him to do anything he has 



THE L0ED ? S PRAYER. 101 

done ; that is only going over old ground. The Lord never 
encourages that, my friends. This prayer is given to people 
who are saved beyond peradventure or doubt, and it is a 
series of petitions for things which we have not got, and 
the answer to every one of these petitions is life more 
abundantly ; what some call perfect life, what some call the 
higher life, which is a very proper word, because there is a 
lower life and a higher life, and that is what the Scripture 
calls life more abundantly, as opposed to the bare life. 
While we were sinners Jesus Christ died for us, but beyond 
this, he came to shed abroad his love in our hearts ; he 
came not only to seal us with the Holy Spirit, which he 
does to all believers in common, but he came that we might 
be also filled with the spirit. A sinner's salvation is to be 
sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. A 
saint's crown means, to be filled with the Holy Spirit ; so 
you see all these things that come up, teaching the sinner's 
salvation and the believer's reward, just simply fit in — every 
expression in the Scriptures fit in, either to life or to life 
more abundantly. 

And now, the second petition is this : Having recognized 
our Father in heaven, treating him as a father, calling him 
1 Father, with filial respect and filial love, we come with 
manly boldness, as a child ought always to come into the 
presence of his father, and we say : " Hallowed be thy 
name." That is the first petition. Oh, Lord, dear Lord, 
do not let me ever do anything that will bring reproach 
upon thy blessed name ; that is the negative side. But, on 
the contrary, may I do everything that will bring glory to 
thy holy name ; that is the positive side. 

"Thy kingdom come." That is the second petition. 
Let me notice one of the devil's definitions. There is 
nothing in which the devil so often gets the advantage of 



102 THE LOKD'S PEAYEE. 

us as in those things which are offered as present blessings 
to us. The devil puts them away off yonder in the future. 
He is very often telling you what you are going to get when 
you get to Heaven. This old, diabolical, pious, preaching 
devil is very fond of talking about Heaven. I notice God 
talks very little about Heaven. He does not tell us whether 
we are to recognize our loved ones in Heaven or not, 
though I have a notion on that subject. As to this, that 
and the other, that men are always inquiring about, you will 
notice that God is very silent about. The Bible has very 
little to do with Heaven, but it has a great deal to do with 
earth ; and so the devil is always contrary to the Lord. 
He is a devil that loves to talk about Heaven. He says, 
"Ah, my dear child of God, when you get to Heaven, what 
a blessed, happy time you will have. ,, I always say, "You 
are a liar. I know what you are after. I know I am going 
to have a good time just as well as you do, but I have got a 
right to have a blessed time on earth." I love to call him 
a liar. There is only one thing I love to do better, and 
that is to say, "Praise the Lord." How I love to call him 
a liar, and to roll it as a sweet morsel under my tongue ; 
just to stand face to face with the devil and find him out in 
his devilment, and say, " You are a liar ; you know you are 
a liar ; you are a sneaking liar ; you are a liar up hill and 
down dale ; you are a liar before breakfast and after sup- 
per ; you are a liar on Sunday and on every other day ; you 
are a liar all along the line." What is the use of talking 
about what a good time you will have in Heaven ? . Time 
enough to find out that when you get there ; but I am going 
to have a good time while I am down here. If you do not 
have a good time down here, you will lose your crown. 
Dear Christians, you do not take a great many things 
that the Lord wants to give you. This old, cunning 



103 

devil comes along preaching about the advantages of 
Heaven, saying, "Ah, my sister, what a sweet temper you 
will have in Heaven." Tell him, " You are a liar ; I will 
have a sweet temper down here." He wants you to believe 
you need not expect it down here, because we are all subject 
to the weakness of the flesh, and as long as you are down in 
this incomplete state you may be expected to be overcome 
with infirmities of temper. The old liar. I have long ago 
learned to tell him he is a liar in this as in everything else. 
"Oh," he says, "what a blessed time it will be when the 
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our 
God and of his Christ." I say, you old liar, that is all very 
true, but it is a lie because it suppresses half the truth. I 
have got a better thing than that, and that is that my king 
shall reign over me right down here, to-day, to-day, to-day. 
I serve another king, one Jesus, and I pray the prayer that 
my Lord taught me : "Thy kingdom come." It is a pres- 
ent prayer, for, praise the Lord, the kingdom has come, and 
the King has come with it. Ah, I have a good time, for I 
have got a blessed monarch, and I am so happy to be in his 
care and have him protect me ; and I know what you are 
after, you lying devil ; you want to put all my happiness off 
until I get away up yonder in the sky. No, no, you cannot 
fool me. So, dear friends, has the devil never come when 
you were cast down by your meanness and woe, and said, 
"Well, it will all be right in Heaven"? And you have 
thrown up your eyes and said it very piously, and then had 
a sort of good feeling, thinking that you have said a pious 
thing. No, my sister, you have said a very devilish thing ; 
that is exactly what you have done. You have not pleased 
the Lord in that. No, no, no, and you do not please the 
Lord talking that way. That is the devil's way of talking 
about Heaven; "Oh, it will be all so nice, * where the 



104 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.' " 
Ah, yes, I shall never sin at all. Oh, what a delightful 
thing it will be, and the devil wants to hide from you the 
fact that he wants you to sin right now. On top of that 
comes the necessity for sinning right now ; that is what the 
devil wants you to believe. Oh, he is a pious devil ; a 
very sweet preacher. Yes, indeed ; and the soul says, with 
a long drawn sigh, " When I get to Heaven I shall never 
sin again, and when I get to Heaven all these pains of body 
shall cease." That is the devil covering up another lie. 
The Lord knows your pains of body all cease just as quick 
as your sins all cease, but the devil does not want you to 
know about that, and that Jesus is the Physician as well as 
the Saviour ; and he says, " Ah, yes, when you get to 
Heaven all your pains will cease ; sickness and sorrow, and 
so on, shall all flee away." Ah, what an old devil he is. 
If I can say anything to-day that will bring you down from 
Heaven to earth, I shall be very glad to do so. You have 
no business in Heaven till you get there ; and I want you 
to stop talking about Heaven, and how good you are going 
to be in Heaven, and telling the Lord how good you are 
going to be there, and tell how good you are going to be in 
this world ; to stop talking about not being sick in Heaven, 
and talk about not being sick down here ; and do not say I 
will get rid of my accursed temper when I get to Heaven, 
but I am going to get rid of my accursed temper right down 
here. Jesus shall cast out this devil, and I am going to be 
free right down here. That is the word to speak, " Thy 
kingdom come." 

I will prove that every one of these petitions is a now pe- 
tition. People are so often saying what do you mean by 
" Thy kingdom come " ? They say it means that the mil- 
lennial kingdom shall come, the time when the leopard 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 105 

shall lie down with the kid, and the lion shall eat straw like 
an ox, and all that ; but all your praying is not going to 
bring that about one minute sooner. That is fixed in the 
times cf the Father. What are you praying about ? You 
are losing your time. Your failure to pray would not hinder 
that one single second. That is going to come about in its 
appointed time and season. But, my friends, while you are 
thinking about the millennial kingdom, the devil, who tries 
to obscure everything, has hidden from you the fact that 
there is a kingdom within you. As Jesus says "The king- 
dom is within you," and there is a King who can come, and 
his name is Jesus ; the same King that shall come then. 
The devil wants to hide from you that fact. You must say 
with great boldness ; " I serve another King, one Jesus, and 
the King is seated on his throne, for I have invited him 
there, and the kingdom is set up, thank God, and he is put- 
ting down all the rulers, and all the authority, and all the 
powers, and I am letting him do it every day ; and we are 
having a glorious, victorious time at our house — having a 
grand and glorious time. Oh, yes, he has turned his Father's 
house from a den of thieves into a house of prayer. He is 
turning the kingdom of the devil which once was within me 
into a kingdom of law and order, righteousness, joy and 
peace in the Holy Ghost. That is the kingdom come with- 
* in me." Ah beloved, seek first the kingdom of God. That 
is what the Lord says to his disciples. " Seek first the king- 
dom of God ; Let his kingdom come ; Let his will be done 
en earth as it is in Heaven, and then all these things shall 
be added unto you." Brethren, it is a practical petition, and 
a present one to you to-day. All the petitions in the Lord's 
prayer are just of this character, and let us run over them all 
except this, and see how perfectly they are now petitions. 
You sav, " Our Father which art in heaven " ? Will he be 



106 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

your Father when you get to heaven ? He is your Father 
now. Hallowed be Thy name. Does that mean I am to 
hallow it when I get to heaven ? No, no. I ought to hal- 
low it now. We will skip " Thy kingdom come " and " Thy 
will be done," " Give us this day our daily bread." You 
do not want to get your daily bread when you get to heaven ; 
that is a now petition. " Forgive us our trespasses as we for- 
give those who trespass against us." You do not want to be 
forgiven in heaven. You want to be forgiven now. " Lead 
us not into temptation." Do you expect the answer of that 
prayer when you get to heaven ? " Deliver me from the evil 
one." Do you expect to be delivered from the evil one 
when you get to heaven ? No, that is now. It is all now. 
What need of saying Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven, if it means things not in heaven ? 
Do you not see Jesus Christ gives us a plain, practical pe- 
tition in answer to our now wants. God never wastes time 
talking about something that cannot be hastened and can- 
not be delayed. You are not talking about the millennial 
kingdom. It is a now, personal want, and this is a prayer 
that the Lord teaches his disciples to pray for themselves, 
to be answered this very day, this very hour, this very mo- 
ment. So, if you utter that prayer intelligently, " Thy king- 
dom come," it means to say, if you are in earnest about it, 
"Oh, Lord, Thy kingdom shall come," for the Lord does 
not want you to ask and not receive. Ah, I would to God 
you would learn to pray that prayer to day ; not say your 
prayers. We have had enough of that. It nauseates me to 
hear people talk about saying their prayers. But friends, 
pray. Jesus teaches you to pray, saying, "Our Father 
which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name ; Thy king- 
dom come." Very well, let us try to analyze it as best we 
can. What do you mean by " Thy kingdom come ? " 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 107 

I say, first, dear friends, that you cannot have a kingdom 
without a king. The thing that makes it a kingdom is the 
presence of the king. After Charles the First was beheaded 
and Charles the Second fled to France, and Cromwell got 
into the place of power, England was no longer a kingdom, 
and it was not recognized as a kingdom. It was a Com- 
monwealth, a Protectorate, anything you please. You can- 
not have a kingdom without a king, as you cannot have a 
Republic without a president. The one who sits in the chair 
of government makes the name of the thing, whatever it is. 
Kaiser Wilhelm was once king of Prussia. The same man 
is now Emperor of Germany ; and the moment he was de- 
clared Emperor Germany changed from a kingdom into 
an empire. Before it was only the kingdom of Prussia, and 
he was the King of Prussia. Once he was proclaimed the 
Emperor of Germany, Germany became an empire. The 
moment Charles the Second came back from France, and 
the people said, " Long live the King," and he entered 
Whitehall, England became a kingdom again. It was in 
a state of chaotic bustle and clamor, day and night, before 
that. So do not dream of a kingdom without a king, for it 
is the king that makes the kingdom. Let us have that 
plainly and distinctly understood. The answer to that 
prayer, "Thy kingdom come" is to let the king come. 
You know who the king is. There is but one king. Jesus is 
king over all. God has blessed him forever more, " Yet have 
I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." There is no 
other king. God has crowned him king. God has declared 
him king. If you will just let Jesus come in and be your 
king, then the kingdom of God is within you. The very 
first thing we know about Jesus, I grant you, is as king ; I 
grant you that. When the sinner comes here and submits 
to the righteousness of God he yields to Jesus as his king, 



108 THE LORD'S PBAYER. 

but there is a difference between the sinner's kingdom, who 
is just saved by grace, and the kingdom that Jesus teaches 
us to pray for. When Jesus says, " Thy kingdom come," 
he wants a kingdom after his own notion. The other is a 
kingdom after our notion, and we are saved, there is no 
doubt about that. From the very moment I let Jesus in, 
and call him king, I set up a kingdom. There is a kingdom 
after a fashion set up within me ; but that has not reference 
to this petition in the Lord's prayer. This petition means 
an absolute monarchy. You say when a sinner takes Jesus 
first as his king, and confesses Christ, he is taking Jesus as 
his king and submitting to his authority. Remember, my 
friends, when we first take Jesus as our king w T e set up what 
the world calls a limited monarchy ; a sort of compromise 
between a representative government and a kingdom proper. 
There is no kingdom, properly speaking, but an absolute 
kingdom. There is no king, properly speaking, except an 
absolute monarch. There is no thought of a kingdom in 
God's mind except of an absolute monarchy, one in which 
the king's voice is supreme, where obedience is absolute, 
where the monarch has no one in the world to dispute his 
will, or say what dost thou ? That is the kind of king- 
dom that ought to be in our minds. If you can only get the 
right kind of king that is the most perfect government in 
the w r orld. Jesus is a perfect king. Therefore, when I pray, 
" Thy kingdom come," that is for this absolute monarchy to 
be set up. I pray for the very best thing ; for an absolute 
monarchy with an absolute king, for he is perfect in every 
particular. I do not want any better government than that. 
You cannot get anything to save your life better than that. 
All of our earthly governments are based upon the fact that 
you cannot get good people, and accordingly as we advance 
in the theory of government, and emerge from savagery and 



THE LOED'S PEAYEE. 109 

barbarism, we begin to put limitations on the kingly power, 
and a limited monarchy is the best monarchy under the sun. 
We in America say that a government where we can change 
our king once in four years is best, inasmuch as it is very 
hard to get a right man for the chair. That is the theory of 
the best government which the world ever saw. It was done 
on the known and discovered weakness of human nature, 
and it is better not to put power into any man's hands, 
though he were an angelic man. I believe this is the best 
government under the sun, but you see it is based upon the 
imperfections of humanity. We have discovered by sad ex- 
perience that it is better never to entrust power into any 
man's hands for over four years at a time. Leave your- 
selves with slack rope enough to put him out. If you like 
him you can put him in for eight years, but no more, and it 
is a very wise enactment indeed. 

But, my friends, you do not have to take ail these precau- 
tions if you have got a good king. I do not have to limit 
my Jesus. I do not have to put any representatives under 
him. Do not have to be always striking at the kingly power; 
do not have to be always guarding myself from meanness ; 
because I have got a king in whom perfect power and per- 
fect love and perfect wisdom are all combined, making a 
non plus ultra monarch. I am so well satisfied with my 
Jesus, with my absolute monarch. Oh, brother, "In rcge 
absoluto" that is what he is to me, and shall be forever more. 
I do not want to rebel against his authority. I do not want 
anybody to come in between him and me in any shape what- 
ever. No limitations ; No, no, no. That love and wisdom 
and power combined, and all divine, and all conspiring to 
bless me — what can I ask for in a government except that ? 
I am perfectly satisfied with my king, and love his person, 
love his service, love his wages and love his ways. I love 



110 THE LOKD'S PBAYEE. 

him because he first loved me. Blessed be the name of my 
God, my king. I serve another king, one Jesus, and I de- 
light to do his will. Oh, my king, my God. I have got a good 
thing, you see. " Thy kingdom come," making the petition 
true and answering it ; letting the king come in, which is the 
only thing that can make a kingdom. When we first get 
converted we set up a sort of limited monarchy. Oh, yes, 
we have got a king, but not an absolute monarch. Did 
Paul give that exhortation in vain, " make no provisions for 
the flesh," if Christians had not been in the habit of doing 
it ? Making provisions for the flesh, is setting up a limited 
monarchy. Yes, Jesus is my king, like Queen Victoria, limi- 
ted, with representatives under him to allow us to do this, 
that and the other, but the representatives are all chosen by 
the devil, and you have a most diabolical way of doing 
things. I went under that government for thirty-five years. 
I thought I lived under a very good government when I was 
in a limited monarchy. Ah, the devil cheated me out of 
fifty thousand souls when I lived under a limited monarchy. 
Oh, how the devil cheated me out of joy and rest while I 
lived under a limited monarchy. Oh, how he clouded every 
hope I had while I lived under a limited monarchy. One 
day I came out of this diabolical mixed government, half 
Jesus and half the devil, half monarchy and half republic. 
I came out of this half-horse half-alligator thing, and made 
Jesus absolute monarch the 25th of August, 1876. I elected 
Jesus absolute monarch, changed the form of government 
entirely. Elected Jesus absolute monarch, pitched the limi- 
ted monarchy to the devil, the place where it belonged, and 
said, August 25th, 1876 ; " By grace through faith I have 
entered the rest." Always rest in an absolute monarchy, 
very little in a limited. There is a little bit, Ah, yes, a little 
taste now and then, in order to make you hungry and make 



THE LOED'S PKAYER, 111 

you thirst. I had a taste at the communion table. Yes, 
had a taste of it in a rattling revival once in a while, but so 
little rest. The old Bible is getting a little weather beaten, 
but the old record is just as I put it there August 25th, 1876, 
" by grace through faith I have entered the rest the Lord 
promises to believing ones." This, when I elected Jesus 
absolute monarch. I believed that he was king, and said, 
Lord, you are king, and will be king henceforth and forever. 
Praise the Lord, he will enter into the throne if you will let 
him. I entered into the rest he promised to believing ones. 
He can and will keep that which I commit to him until that 
day. All glory to him who gives, takes and commands. 
"For we which have believed do enter into rest." (Heb.iv. 3). 
I never had any perpetual rest until I made Jesus absolute 
monarch, then the kingdom came in power, and, praise God, 
we have had such a glorious government ever since. My 
friends, there has been no anarchy, no revolution, no civil 
war, no robbery. Gold and silver are just as plenty as dirt 
in the streets. Dear friends, you can lay a diamond down, 
and never a robber will come and take it away. You do not 
have to put on bolts and bars when you lie down. No cold 
blasts to chill you. The sun no longer withdraws itself. 
The moon no longer hides its light. The days of mourning 
are ended, and a morning dawning with songs of everlasting 
joy. That is it. It is the rehearsal of heavenly singing. 
Heaven would be no more to me than going out of one room 
into another. There is but a wall of paper between that 
heaven and this, for this heaven is made by the coming of 
my king, and that heaven will be made by my going to my 
king there. In either case it is a king ; an absolute mon- 
arch, and I will not be more obedient to him in heaven than 
I am now. " Thy will be done, Oh, Lord, on earth as it is 
in heaven." All I had to do was to believe Jesus would do 



112 THE LOKD'S PBATEK. 

what he said he would. Open the door. Say, enter in thou 
blessed king, why standest thou without. "Oh, lift up your 
heads, ye gates, and be lifted up ye everlasting doors, and 
the King of Glory shall come in." Who is to lift them up ? 
You. Nobody else will do it. Lift up your heads, ye gates. 
That means, "I will." You may say, I will not obey, I will 
make provision for the flesh, I will do a little devilment ; I 
will indulge in this, that and the other. But I said one day, 
" Oh, lift up your heads ye gates." I will. And then they 
opened, and they have been hanging there ever since open. 
Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be lifted up ye everlasting 
doors. I will, I will, I will believe. I will receive. I will 
have Jesus on the throne as absolute monarch. One ever- 
lasting " I will," that is all it is. Oh, be ye lifted up ye ever- 
lasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is 
this King of Glory ? The Lord of hosts, the Lord Mighty 
in battle. That is the first thing I found out in him. I 
found out he was mighty in battle. I set him on to one 
or two of my favorite lusts. Oh, how he scattered them 
like chaff before a whirlwind. Who is this king of Glory ? 
The Lord of hosts, the Lord mighty in battle. Not all the 
devils can stand before him, if they were as thick as sands 
on the sea shore. Not all of these imperious lusts that 
infest our natures ; these robbers of our peace ; no, not 
one of them can withstand him. He is the Lord, mighty 
in battle. Oh, how he cleaned them out. Oh, praise his 
name. 

Well, brethren, that is the kingdom. That is what I am 
talking about. I am not talking about the millennium ; I am 
not talking about heaven. I am talking about a new peti- 
tion to be followed by a new answer. Oh, I pray that you 
may be led to make that firm and decisive affirmation, " I 
will." That is all, just one I will persisted in. That set- 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 113 

ties the world. I have never taken that word back since 
the 25th of August, 1876. It was an everlasting gate that 
was lifted up then, I did not elect him for four years to 
shut him out if I did not like him. I knew who he was. I 
knew that he was a worthy king, and I elected him forever 
and forever ; and I never will take it back by God's sweet 
grace. He is my kingly king ; my royal Jesus, and I am 
his subject ; wholly his subject. That is God's idea. It 
shall be mine forever and ever. 

Now, what happens, friends, when this kingly question 
comes in ? Now, I think you can appreciate this 35th 
Chapter of Isaiah. The kingdom in manifested glory, that 
is what Isaiah is talking about, but I am talking about the 
spiritual kingdom. The letter will send you to heaven 
without any crown. The letter will rob you of present joy 
and peace, and while you are dreaming about the millen- 
nium, the devil will rob you. I am talking about the true 
kingdom come. 

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and 
singing." Now, that is a beautiful figure. That is a lovely 
thought. Oh, beloved, I have made it my life. It is 
nothing but flowers. It is a desert place made to laugh 
with flowers. I am so ghd that is in the figure. And in 
reality my heaven is going to be full of flowers. We have 
got a strange, etherial idea of heaven, that makes it a very 
uncomfortable place to me. Ah, brother, the big heaven up 
yonder and the little heaven down here are places where the 
flowers bloom. Not a few. They shall blossom abund- 
antly. That is what I want to call your attention to. 
I know in the old life, when I had a limited monarchy and 
elected Jesus for a little time, we had a flower now and 



114 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

then : had them just as you people do that have a bit of an 
eight by ten flower bed in the back yard, and a pit where 
you keep your flowers in winter ; and a very troublesome 
thing it is to have flowers. I shall ever remember those 
big oleander tubs I had to help lift down in the pit in Octo- 
ber and lift out of it in the Spring. Shall I ever forget those 
double climbing roses that used to sweep me across the face 
and tattoe me like a Sandwich Islander, and the dirty 
hands and the work I had to keep up the flowers. Mrs. 
Barnes always insisted that it paid to keep flowers, and I 
always insisted that it did not, because I had all the work to 
do, and she had all the smelling to do. She would say, 
" George, let us take that tub down there in the pit, and 
please do not break the branches/' I felt like getting a big 
club and smashing the glass. In those days I did not have 
enough religion to cure my temper. I did not have the ab- 
solute monarchy I am talking about. Oh, the trouble we 
had to have a few flowers. That is not the life I am talking 
about. This is a life where flowers blossom abundantly, 
and do not give you trouble to take care of them : do not 
freeze out every third winter when you have to take a fresh 
start clear from the aground up, and the third winter comes 
cold and severe and freezes them out again. What I don't 
know about flowers is not worth knowing. But that trouble 
and that old life have all passed away. You will never 
catch me picking up another tub as long as I live. My 
flowers blossom abundantly. Did you ever see one of our 
prairies ablaze with bloom and beauty, where you could lift 
up your eyes and look for twenty miles around and see 
nothing but flowers ? There is a certain time of year when 
the whole prairie is filled with flowers of varying hues. 
There is nothing in your pathway but flowers, that fall be- 
neath your feet as you go on your way through flowers, and 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 115 

the scent of flowers is forever in your nostrils. That is the 
kind of flowers I want. Not these that you have to pain- 
fully take care of and nurse, and train, and examine once 
in a while, but the flowers that blossom abundantly. I wish 
I could tell you how my life blooms with flowers. No more 
sadness for me. I have not seen a sad day for Ave years 
and a half. 

What troubles me in looking at people's faces is, that they 
do not look happy, the devil has made so many marks in 
their faces. Ah, the Lord is going to take all mine out. I 
have got a whole lot of Devil scratches on my face, and the 
scars have not gone out yet. The Lord is going to wipe 
them all out from my face. It is getting more smooth 
every year that I live. Ah, Jesus is going to wipe out all 
those old claw marks. Five years ago you would have 
thought I was seventy years old. I do not look fifty-five 
to-day, do I ? No ; but I am fifty-five, past ; I will be fifty- 
six pretty soon. Ah, Jesus makes a man bear his age well. 
Jesus is the one to renew your youth with the smell of 
flowers. I want you to have a life of them ; blossom- 
ing abundantly. 

" Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble 
knees." 

I need not dwell on that. You all know what that is. I 
wish I could tell you how strong I feel in the power of the 
Lord. There is no strength in me, but I have got such a 
good king ; He is so powerful. I have got all the resources, 
then, at my command. Ah, blessed Jesus, thy gentleness 
hath made me whole. My crutches all gone ; canes thrown 
away. I remember looking into a doctor's shop once. He 
was a wonderfully successful man, and he used to keep as 
trophies of his success the crutches, props and canes and 
one thing another that people threw away when they came 



116 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

to be cured. Ah, brother ; Jesus will get you rid of all 
those. You will not need them. You will not need any- 
thing, he will put such strength in you. 

" Say unto them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear 
not ; behold your God will come with vengeance, even God 
with a recompence ; He will come and save you." 

Fear not. You see the one mark of that old life. I was 
afraid of everything ; afraid I could not get enough to eat 
and drink and wear ; afraid that my sermons would not do 
any good. I was always afraid. That has all gone out of 
my life. I have heard the voice of my king saying : 
" Fear not, it is I." I would scorn to be afraid with Jesus 
speaking that always in my ear. My Jesus has all the power, 
and that power waits upon the simple faith of his children ; 
certainly it does. The rock is very hard, I know it ; but the 
hammer is harder. " Fear not," that voice is sounding ever 
in my ear, "Fear not." I wish I could tell you what 
strength and courage it gives me. 

" Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears 
of the deaf shall be unstopped." 

"The eyes of the blind shall be opened." My eyes used 
to be bat blind. In reading this blessed word it was the 
greatest trouble. I could not see the pretty things in it. I 
used to love Dickens and Thackeray and all the rest of them 
better than the blessed Bible. That is all gone. What a 
degradation the thought used to be that I could sit down and 
read them hour after hour, and yet would get sleepy on ten 
minutes reading of the Bible. I used to ask myself if I was 
a Christian at all ? and how the devil used to prod me with 
that question. It was a sense of degradation. That has all 
gone out of my life, because my eyes are open now. I see 
wondrous things in the Bible. The Lord did not blame me 
much ; I was bat blind, and I was in that limited monarchy. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 117 

I could not see plainly. Ah, dear friend, what a blessed 
thing it is when the eyes are opened, and when the ear is 
unstopped, when you can hear the voice of God. I did not 
know whether God or the devil spoke to me nine times out 
of ten. But that is gone out of my life, and always knowing 
the voice of God and the devil, the devil cannot deceive me 
any more by mimicking the voice of God. When your hear- 
ing is very defective you cannot tell exactly. You have not 
got a delicate, accurate sense of sound. I have got all that 
now. The Lord has unstopped my ears. He has anointed 
my eyes, so that I can see wondrous things out of them now. 
I hear his voice as plainly as ever he spoke. I have never 
heard a voice with these ears ; never had an ecstasy. 1 have 
had no exercises of that kind, and thank God for it. I have 
never had an ecstasy ; never been in a place where common 
people may not come ; no, no. What religion God has given 
me has been a steady, sweet, blessed, even growth, and I 
praise the Lord for it. Nothing very high and nothing very 
low down, but it is so blessed — ears open. It used to be so 
hard to talk to sinners about souls ; it is so easy now I can- 
not talk about anything else. There is no strain, there is no 
effort in talking about Jesus. It is the most acceptable topic 
you can start. It is the most delightful thing in the w T orld 
to talk about, the very thing that used to be so difficult. 

" Then shall the lame man leap as the hart, and the 
tongue of the dumb shall sing." 

" Then shall the lame man leap as a hart." Do you know 
I never read that over without recalling a scene that occurred 
at a camp-meeting three years ago. There was a Brother 
Carlin that came down from Ft. Wayne on his way to Ur- 
bana to get holiness. Inskip was going to have a meeting 
after this holy camp-meeting, and the Lord sent me, too. 
Brother Carlin was an awful tobacco chewer and bought five 



118 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

pounds of tobacco all at once, and was going to chew that all 
up before he got holiness, but he got holiness at our camp- 
meeting and did not have to go to Inskip at all. I shall 
never forget how he got holiness. He preached a sermon 
on holiness when he did not have it, and it was a very good 
one ; only he was a stiff sort of man ; wore a plug hat and 
black coat and white cravat, and his hair was all plastered 
over just in the right way, and he read off from a manuscript, 
and delivered his sentences just as you would deliver a vol- 
ley of musketry. He was an awful stiff old fellow — a nice, 
good, clever man, but he was so stiff ; a regular clergyman, 
with a ramrod running down his spinal marrow. 

Now, dear friends, he came down to get holiness, and he 
preached a sermon on holiness, I suppose by request, or may 
be he had been writing on the subject ; and after it was all 
done, said he, "Brethren, I do not know anything about 
this. This is all talk, but as God's grace shall help me I am 
going to have it." And down he went right into the straw 
and we after him; and there we were, and had a good, warm 
meeting. I never enjoyed myself any more in my life than 
I did down in the straw ; and I found out sinners could be 
converted just as well in the straw as anywhere else. The 
Lord knocked the scales off of my eyes at that camp-meeting. 
I used to think my way was the only way. J was pretty 
much of a fool, but the Lord makes me wiser every experi- 
ence I have, and I had one big scale knocked off of my eyes 
at that camp-meeting. When he found out what a simple 
thing it was, some one said, do you know Jesus is the sanc- 
tifier ? You know Jesus is the savior, don't you ? You are 
after sanctification, and you may strive here and agonize 
after it for weeks and weeks and never get it, but if you take 
Jesus you will find you have got sanctification. You took 
him once as your justifier, and does not he justify you ? 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 119 

Why cannot you take him as your sanctifier by the simple 
exercise of your will ? Why, says he, is that it ? And he 
jumped up and says he, Praise the Lord, I am sanctified, I 
am sanctified, I am sanctified ! I wish you had heard him 
preach on the 23d Psalm that night. I wish you might have 
seen him, with his notes all gone. I wish you might have 
seen him rush backwards and forwards on that platform 
there, jumping back and forth like a harlequin, with his coat 
tails flying ; arms swinging ; full of the Holy Ghost ; making 
us laugh and cry alternately. I never heard such an expo- 
sition of the 23d Psalm before, and never expect to again till 
I get to heaven. The man was full of the Holy Ghost, just 
out of jail, trying to tell somebody how they could get there 
too. It was glorious ; and once, when we were laughing a 
merry laugh with tears running down our cheeks, he made a 
jump, and jumped clear off the platform. The man was 
happy in the Lord. One of the brethren just turned to me, 
and whispered softly in my ears : " Brother, the lame man 
shall leap as the hart ; " and I never hear that text without 
I think of Brother Carlin. The next morning he linked 
arms with a good brother, and said he : " Come out 
I want to attend a funeral ; will you go with me ? 
He supposed it was to some neighboring farmer's. 
Yes, said he, I will go with you. He walked out to the 
woods, and kept walking around among the trees, and after 
a while he found a mole hole, and took the point of his toe, 
and just raked along until he made a grave about three feet 
long ; got the dirt all nicely cleaned out with the point of 
his toe. Now, said he, there is the grave. He put his hand 
in his pocket and pulled out a pound plug of tobacco and 
laid that down, and pulled out another and another until he 
had five pounds of tobacco. He had intended to chew that 
up — have one good chew before he got holiness, but the 



120 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

Lord's ways are not our ways. He got holiness and did not 
get his chew either. After he had made a pile of the to- 
bacco, he covered it up nicely with dirt, and hunted around 
till he got a head stone to stand at the grave, and then said : 
" Brother, let us pray." And, said that Brother, I never 
want to hear a sweeter prayer than he made over the grave 
of tobacco. God, of course, took away all taste for the ac- 
cursed stuff, and he had no more taste for it than I have. 
Jesus took it away. You see our king made a clean thing. 
He always makes a clean job ; cleans the devil out of you. 
That is the way he took my temper ; that is the way he took 
my taste for tobacco ; that is the way he took fifty things 
that I could enumerate. Oh, my king Jesus is such a kingly 
king. 

" And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the 
thirsty land springs of water. In the habitations of dragons, 
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes." 

As we go along in life, see the difference. The old places 
in our lives where the lizards and the newts and the frogs 
and the toads and the moccasin snakes and everything that 
was vile used to wind in and out in the mud, there is now a 
" blue grass farm." Did you ever see one of our Kentucky 
blue grass farms ? Those old swamps shall be changed into 
blue grass farms, thank the Lord. 

" And the highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall 
be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass 
over it ; but it shall be for those. The wayfaring men, 
though fools, shall not err therein." 

It is the king's highway, but there is something higher. 
It is a way within a way, you see. What shall the way be 
called? Is there any difference between the highway where 
you all walk, and the way where all do not walk ? The way 
shall be called the way of holiness. There is the highway 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 121 

where all the children walk, and there is another way that 
is thrown up on higher ground, where the devil never comes. 
He can come into the highway, but can never come into the 
way. He may do his mightiest, but can never come across 
it. If you keep yourself in the love of God that wicked one 
toucheth you nor. 

" No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go 
up thereon. It shall not be found there, but the redeemed 
shall walk there." 

The redeemed of the Lord shall walk there. 

" And the ramsomed of the Lord shall return and come to 
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They 
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away." 

Brethren, sisters, lay it to your own hearts. There is the 
word of the Lord. There is my pathway, God being my 
king ; Jesus my king — my kingly king, thou shalt be my 
pathway until it ends in glory. Praise the Lord. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



"Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven" 

Observing still that the Lord's claims are always the first 
of all through the scripture, in everything, and in the Lord's 
prayer emphasised as plainly, or more plainly than anywhere 
else ; noticing that man and his wants are not attended to 
at all, and man is out of question until we come to the 
fourth petition, the first three covering what God requires, 
what is due to God, we come to the fourth petition in the 
Lord's prayer. As it is written, " Hallowed be thy name. 
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven." Then, after God you give to man his due. Then ex- 
pect to have your trespasses forgiven as you forgive those 
who trespass against you ; expect your daily bread as you 
ask for it ; expect that you will not be led into temptation, 
and expect that you will be delivered from the devil. Then 
you will have it all answered, dear friends. But remember 
God is first. He must have the better place always. Let 
me invite your attention then to the third petition in the 
Lord's prayer ; " Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven." Many, I feel sure, will doubt the possibility of 
this petition being realized, but it is just as easy as turning 
over your hand. It is the easiest thing in the w^orld to do 
the will of the Lord as it is done in heaven. I hope to prove 
this to you. At any rate, friends, if you say " Oh, that can- 
not be done," then I say, w T hat did Jesus Christ tell me to 



THE lord's prayer. 123 

pray for it for — to waste my breath ? to give God informa- 
tion as to a thing he knew perfectly well could not be done ? 
Nonsense on the face of it. I don't try to assign a reason 
why it cannot be done ; otherwise the Lord's prayer turns 
into nonsense. If that is not easily done, the whole thing is 
of small force. If I cannot call God my father now and 
hallow his name, and let his kingdom come, and do his will 
on earth as it is in heaven, then I need not expect to have 
my sins forgiven, or my trespasses forgiven, or my daily 
bread furnished me, or to be kept from temptation, or to be 
delivered from the devil. It all hangs or falls together. It 
is nonsense on the face of it to say that Jesus Christ should 
set us to pray for a thing that he did not intend to give us. 
That is entirely out of the question, and impossible. To set 
you and me to asking for things that there is not the least 
use in asking for. It is degrading to man and doubly degrad- 
ing to God, to entertain such an idea. Dear friends, if you 
say it is not impossible that the will of God should be done 
on earth as it is in heaven, you represent our Heavenly 
Father as trifling with the feelings and affections of His chil- 
dren. So, dear friends, I teach the plain, simple word — the 
word of God — when I teach that the will of God can be 
done on earth just as easily as it is done in heaven ; else the 
dear Lord would never have told us to ask for it if it could 
not have been done, and the simple key to the whole thing 
is just in where you put the emphasis. Put the emphasis on 
" Thy" if you please. That is the key to the whole of it. 
" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I grant you 
the devil's will is hard to do. He is a hard master. He is 
an austere man, yes, indeed, a regular slave-driver. If you 
set self upon the throne, the will of self is hard to do. I 
have tried it many and many a time ; but if the emphasis be 
laid on Thy, where the Lord wants it to be laid, then the 



124 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

sky is clear, and everything is plain and simple. Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven ; for thy will, Oh, blessed 
God, where wisdom and love are combined, is not the hard 
thing that disloyal hearts would represent it to be. " I de- 
light to do thy will, Oh, my God." That is what Jesus 
Christ said, setting us an example that we should follow. 
You say, Oh, dear, I cannot do as he did, Nonsense that. 
We should follow in his footsteps. I can say it just as Jesus 
said it, in kind, though not in degree, I grant you that. He 
is the elder brother and is bound to have the preeminence 
in all things. I do not want to rob him, but in kind, though 
not in degree, I can say it, and I do say it with all my heart. 
Without the least departure from the truth, I can with 
steadfast eye look into the face of my dear Lord, and with 
unfaltering voice say, " I delight to do thy will, Oh, my God." 
Emphasis on thy and emphasis on my ; then it is all right. 
I delight to do thy will, Oh, my God. Why ? thy law is with- 
in my heart. 

Ah, brother, that is another clue. May the Lord give me 
the ability to unearth all the devil's mischief in this matter. 
Let us see the law written on the heart ; Ah, that furnishes 
the clue — the law written on the fleshy tables of the heart ; 
as Paul says, " I delight to do thy will, Oh, my God:" Why? 
for thy law is within my heart. Do I delight to do the law 
that is outside on the two tables of stone ? No, indeed. 
They are as hard as the rock on which they are written; that 
is Sinai, and the law written in the heart is Calvary. Writ- 
ten, my friends, not with the pen of Moses. " The law was 
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 
There is where the theologians all blunder and breakdown. 
There is where I got my early training, for I was taught that 
the will of God was written on the two tables of stone, and 
there is what I thought the will of God was. Theology im- 



THE lord's prayer. 125 

posed it upon me. I can give you the very items in which 
it was told to me. The law is the transcript of God's moral 
nature. The law is God's will ; that is his holy will. Very 
well, I say, right straight out, I cannot do it. Ah, says theo- 
logy, I knew you could not do it, but Jesus has done it for 
you. Yes, then what ? Then having furnished an excuse 
for laziness by telling us we cannot do it, but that Jesus has 
done it for us, then he turns around fiercely and savagely, 
and puts us under the law as the rule of life. Oh, " Confus- 
ion worse confounded." A knot that Paul has cut with that 
clean cut Damascus scimitar. I am not under the law at all. 
I am under grace, thanks be to God ; there is where I am 
to-day. I am not under the law — no, not as the rule of jus- 
tification — rule of life. It is theology that makes the defi- 
nition, invented by the devil and foisted upon the church 
and upon the world, and it passes current to this day. There 
is not one single shred of scripture in it, but pure theology; 
of men exhausting their puny efforts to work out a thing, 
and getting in a muddle about it, and then trying to explain 
the difficulties. Not under the law for justification. No, 
the word was a little too plain for that on that subject. They 
could not get over that, " for by the works of the law shall 
no flesh be justified/' Then what ? Jesus performs the 
works of the law in our stead, making Christ's obedience to 
the law our justification, instead of his being damned by the 
law in our stead, which is the real justification, and then 
what ? Well, you cannot obey the law, therefore, you need 
one to obey it for you. Then what can you do ? Why, then 
you break it daily, in thought and word and deed, as our 
blessed old catechism used to say. Then these good cate- 
chism-makers might go on to say, break it every hour. Well, 
that is a fact. Why not then say, break it every minute ? 
Well, that is true. If I have got a right to say break it every 



126 THE LOED 5 S PRAYER. 

day in word thought and deed, I can say break it hourly 
in word, thought and deed, or minutely or secondly in 
thought, word and deed. One is just as true as the other. 
You cannot get lower than every second. If there had been 
a lower fraction of time you might carry it further. 

Ah, blessed God, to think that thy spirit of truth has been 
diluted to that devil's broth, and the sons of the prophets to 
be fed upon it. God have mercy upon you if you ever be- 
lieved in such an error of the devil as that. I was fed on 
it, raised on it. It nearly sent me to hell in the first place, 
for God told me to do a thing I could not do ; my soul re- 
volted at it. I remember on one occasion four of us boys 
clustered about the stove toasting cheese, deliberately re- 
solved to curse God ; this God who kept little boys all day 
Sunday and would not allow them to smile. We had to get 
a few questions from the catechism and a few verses from 
the Bible, and a few more verses if we did anything wrong ; 
and we merited the curse of this God. This God that did 
not love naughty children, as my mother had told me, say- 
ing, " George, you must be a good boy, because God don't 
love naughty children, and God does love good children ; 
and when I was fourteen years old I sat there and cursed 
God. We ought to have been turned into hell, but we did 
it ignorantly, and God had mercy upon us, and I am preach- 
ing the gospel to-day. The other boys did not get off as 
well as I, I am afraid. The curse of many of them became 
a permanent curse. God showed me better things — to bless 
him instead of cursing him. I shall never forget how we 
cursed this God of theology, my father's God, my mother's 
God, the Puritan God, the God that has no existence in the 
Bible ; the God that Ingersoll is assailing with such power, 
so that neither Talmage, nor Black, nor any man with 
brains in his head can answer it. It is unanswerable. The 



THE lord's prayer. 127 

god that he assails is indefensible. I will defy Calvin, 
Luther or Wesley to defend him. They cannot do it. 
Ingersoll is the master of the situation. He has never 
touched my God. Has never come within thousands of 
miles of him. When he does, then in my poor way he will 
hear from me, but until he touches my God I have nothing 
in the world against him. Poor man, he is assailing a god 
that I hate as much as he does. He is assailing a god that 
drove me to bay at fourteen years of age till I cursed him ; 
a god that tells a man to do a thing he cannot do ; a god 
that tells us to pray for things that we will never get ; a god 
that tears us like a Bengal tiger. Oh, no, my friends, that 
is not the God I worship. I hate that god because that is 
the god of this world ; the devil sitting upon God's throne, 
and being worshipped, inside and out of the church. He 
shall never have homage from me. My God is the father 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. As for my God, he is good ; and 
nothing else. My God never troubles, my God never kills, 
never damns ; my God saves and loves us, and weeps when 
men are lost. My God saves men when they come unto 
him through Christ. My God never damns, never destroys, 
never hurts. I am so glad I have got a God that is the true 
God, the eternal Father. Ah, little children, says John, 
and I say it too in his name, " keep yourselves from idols." 
A vain idol is a false god. Brother, sister, you would be 
shocked to think how you have been worshipping a false 
god if you would just set yourselves to think for five minutes. 
" Little children, keep yourselves from idols," or false gods. 
Believe in the one true God. There is but one, and he is 
God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I go over this 
ground in order to show you what the theologians have done 
in saying what the will of God is. The will of God is that 
the law that was delivered on Sinai, bearing down upon all 



128 THE lord's prayer. 

alike, making demands that none of us can fulfil, and that is 
the will of God, which in no wise I can do. No, no, no. 
And it teaches that I cannot do it, and yet they put us under 
it as a rule of life, and so I am ground down under a law 
that I cannot obey, making God as bad as old Caligula, a 
Roman Emperor, who was such a dreadful tyrant that he wrote 
his laws in fine letters and stuck them up high on a column 
where nobody could read them, and then killed people for 
not obeying them. I am sorry to say that idea of God has 
got in the church. God have mercy on his children. I only 
wonder that any of them come to do anything at all with 
such a god as that. A false god is a fearful thing — an 
abomination in the sight of the Lord. Little children, keep 
yourselves from idols. Ah, if it were not for the Christian 
instinct within you, the love of Jesus that overrides all your 
theological education, and makes you good in spite of earth 
and hell and theology combined, the church would be worse 
than it is, but, thank God, the love of Jesus still finds its 
way into hearts and still influences and controls holy lives 
despite the absurd teachings of theology. I am no friend to 
theology. It has been an awful enemy to me. It clings to 
me now like a bur, and painfully and slowly I am unlearning 
everything that I learned in theology, and all that makes my 
ministry go hard to-day is my theology. I have to com- 
mence, as we say in Kentucky, " from the stump," and just 
learn of Jesus, sitting at his feet. It is hard to unlearn, for 
unlearning is the hardest of all. These old things came 
along, and I fall into a rut with a jolt, and go grinding along. 
Whenever the machinery gets out of gear I lay it to theol- 
ogy. " The will of God, that is the law on Mt. Sinai," and 
on you go with the letter of the law grinding you down. 
They will make that law regulate and forbid and indicate 
and suggest and imply, until the poor creature shrieks out, 



the lord's prayer. 129 

" It is enough, I am dead. What is the use of killing me 
any more ? I am dead, dead, dead," he cries out in agony. 

My friends, that is not the will of God. My Saviour 
teaches me to say, thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven. Remember you must bring the emphasis on " Thy." 
Don't you mistake God's will for the will of theology. Don't 
ycu mistake God's will for the will of the devil. Don't you 
mistake God's will for the will of the flesh. You will never 
be able to answer the demands of the devil or of the world 
or of the flesh. But God's will is very sweetly and easily 
done. I am doing it to-day, praise the Lord. 

When Paul says, " Walk with your father," he does not 
tell you to do a thing you cannot do. That would be Ca- 
ligula again ; that would be a tyrant again. When Paul 
says, "Adorn the doctrines of God, your Saviour, in all 
things," he does not mean you cannot do it in all things. 
Why would he waste his time exhorting men to do things 
that never can be done ? Do you not see that stultification 
is right on the surface of all such things as that ? I wish to 
show you that we can adorn the doctrine of God, our 
Saviour, in all things ; that we can do his will on earth -just 
as it is done in Heaven. The central point is to find out, 
not what men say the will of God is ; not to find out the 
devil's will, and try to obey it ; not to find out my own will, 
and try to do it ; but to find out what the will of God is, 
and do that. Let me tell you, my friends, that the will of 
God is what he tells you to do. That is very different from 
this imperative law that comes bearing down, with its 
implied things, and its forbidden things, and its suggested 
things, all bearing down upon the poor creature, great or 
small, old or young ; and that is the devil's interpretation 
of the will of God. It is as if a father should burden his 
little three-year-old child with services that none but a 



130 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

grown man could do, and which a grown man can easily do. 
It is as if a father should command his son five years of 
age to load a two-bushel bag of wheat and take it to the 
mill, which a young man of nineteen or twenty could gladly 
do ; would do it to show his strength. He is a man, every 
inch of him. But it would crush the little fellow. 

So, my friends, let us get back to that sweet old text 
again. Lay it to your hearts. In expressing our thoughts 
to our little children we never burden them, especially if we 
love them dearly, and especially if those children are very 
obedient. Why, dear friends, if we, being evil, never 
would burden one of our children, how impossible it is for 
God, who is good, ever to burden one of his children. 
And mark you, dear friends, if my child comes to me — and 
it has been explained again and again by those who have 
been over the road — if my child comes to me, and says : 
" Father, I have given you great trouble ; I have been a 
wilful child, but henceforth I will be an obedient child ; my 
father, I yield with all the power of my soul ; I yield my 
will to thine, dear father ; I am yours henceforth ; I love 
you and wish to do your pleasure ; and I have such perfect 
confidence in your goodness and love, I know you will 
never ask your child to do a thing he cannot do, and do 
easily, because, first, I confide in your love, and second, I 
want to have the joy of being an obedient child. I yield 
myself wholly to your will." What would I do or you do 
with such a child ? Would it not be the perpetual study of 
our lives never to assign a duty to that child that would be 
irksome ; never to lay a burden on that child that would 
grind him to powder ; never to tell that child a thing to do 
so doubtful that he would be in painful doubt of what to 
do. For that dear child's sake, would not all the careless- 
ness go out of your life, and you would study day and 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 131 

night just to tell that child what to do ; not to discipline 
and train him, but to develop him ; to cause him to grow 
with stalwart growth, always to develop, so that every fresh 
duty as it came would only develop the strength of his 
limbs, the love of his heart, and make his will to be obedi- 
ent. If you, being evil, beloved, would do that for your 
child, how much more certainly would God do it for you 
and for me ; and that is the sweet discovery that I made. 
That is not the god that I cursed at thirteen ; not the god 
who drove me to bay ; not the devil on God's throne that 
my mother and father taught me to worship — as good peo- 
ple as ever lived in Dayton or out of Dayton. My father 
was just as good a man as ever lived in Dayton, and I dare 
say it, and the older people that have known him bear the 
same testimony. He was taught it by his father, and it 
came down to me in regular descent. I was raised a Phar- 
isee of the Pharisees ; but that god did not act as well on 
me as it did on somebody else ; and it drove me to bay at 
thirteen ; and the God that I now worship is a God that is 
at least as good as I am ; and I love him, because I know I 
never would lay any burden upon my darling daughter, who 
is thoroughly subject and thoroughly obedient. Do you 
think I would lay a feather upon her ? No, I would shelter 
•her from a snowflake. I would rather have my head cut 
off, rather have my eyes thrust out, than lay a burden on 
her. Why ; because she is an obedient child. I would 
guard her with my life. Burden her ? Never. If I, being 
still evil, and evil within me and without me, would not 
burden my child, how much more, do you suppose, would 
God treat me generously ? That is the way he does. When 
I gave him credit for being as good as I was, that took 
me a long ways, and since then I have given him credit 
for being a great deal better than I am, and I keep on 



132 THE lord's prayer. 

giving him more and more credit as I find him out. Dear 
friends, his will is a sweet, and blessed, and lovable thing, 
in which the soul delights to lose itself, as in an ocean of 
mercy, and love, and never dying wisdom ; looking at the 
hands that are pierced, and saying, How can they lay a 
burden on me that never ought to be borne ; looking into 
my father's face, who gave his Son to die for me, and say- 
ing, Shame on me, if ever I should doubt the love that 
gave an only begotten Son ; I will say, Father, thy will be 
done on earth as it is in Heaven, and thus I become subject 
to his will. His will for me is what he tells me to do, and 
his will for you is what he tells you to do ; just as we give 
one work to a large child and another to a small child. 
Our will with regard to our children is exactly according to 
their capacity ; and so we lay light burdens upon all. And 
so with my dear, blessed Lord. His will for me is as light 
as a feather. As it is written, "His yoke is easy" — not the 
devil's. Emphasis on his — emphasis again on the personal 
pronoun his. " His yoke is easy and his burden is light. 
His commandments are never grievous." "I delight to do 
thy will, O, my God." Emphasis on delight, and emphasis 
on thy, and emphasis on my — my God. " I delight to do 
thy will, O, my God." So, you see, dear friends, love is a 
very sweet and pleasant thing ; for now, whenever a thing 
is burdensome I say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." That 
does not belong to my life at all ; God has undertaken 
never to burden me. When a light burden, an easy yoke, 
comes along, I say, That is thy will, dear Lord. I will 
never carry the devil's burdens any more. I grieve for you, 
heavy laden Christians, that are going about packing bur- 
dens that Jesus Christ would bear for you ; and yet you 
are Christians, saved by grace. 



THE lord's prayer. 133 

Mrs. Smith illustrates that very strikingly with the story 
of a traveler who is going along, and asks a stranger to al- 
low him to ride in his wagon. He is carrying a burden on 
his back ; and when he sits down in the wagon he still car- 
ries the burden on his back, with the strong horses pulling 
him along as if they did not mind the weight. Why don't 
you lay your burden down in the bottom of the wagon ? 
says the driver. " Oh, sir, it is so kind of you to let me 
ride I would not ask you to bear my burden." A fool, 
wasn't he ? And Jesus calls us fools — Oh, fool, to let me 
carry you and you carry your burdens. Poor simpleton. 
Drop your burden into his arms. He is big enough and 
strong enough to carry your burden and you, too. It is just 
as wicked to carry a burden as it is to lie ; just as wicked 
to carry a burden as to steal, or commit adultery or blas- 
pheme — just as wicked ; perhaps more so, when the curtain 
is lifted, and we find out what right and wrong are, a thing 
that very few know anything at all about, even in this nine- 
teenth century. 

" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," that is to 
say, Lord, I put myself now, without reserve, into your 
hands to do your will. Now, Lord, do you work in me to 
will and to do of your good pleasure. That is it. How 
simple that is. Dear Lord, do you work in me to will and 
to do of your good pleasure ; and so the Lord says to me, 
take this, and that, .to do, and I say, thank you, Lord, that is 
easily done. I have never felt the gall of his yoke since I 
submitted to him the 25th of August, 1876. I have never 
felt the weight of a burden since that time — praise the 
Lord — except once in a while the devil has tried to put his 
burden on me. It is so heavy I do not carry it long. 
Every once in a while he tries to put his burden on my 
neck, and I find out it does not belong to Jesus, and so I 



134 THE lokd's prayer. 

jerk it off as quick as lightning. He is always trying to do it, 
but he seldom succeeds and never for long. That is a bar- 
gain, I am never to do anything I do not want to do, and 
so I never will. I want to do everything God wants me to 
do, and so I am pretty busy. Am I not a pretty busy man, 
for the last five years and a half preaching twice a day and 
three times on Sunday ? Has it killed me ? Not at all. It 
has straightened the kinks out of my back ; given me a good 
brain and good heart and health unimpaired. That is what 
his service does. As the Episcopal prayer book says — and 
there are some good things in it — "Thy service is perfect 
freedom. " "I delight to do his will." What I delight to 
do does not kill me. The service of Jesus is such a delight- 
ful service, and it is such a joy to follow him. " Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven " is the easiest thing to do 
in the world. If you say, it is very hard to be a Christian, 
the reason is you are a mean Christian. It is an awful bur- 
den on you. But be a first-class Christian, and then your 
life will flow on in endless song above earth's lamentations ; 
for being a first-class Christian does not burden you. Is 
your life above earth's lamentations? Oh no, Brother Barnes. 
You are like that Christian that chews tobacco — a mean 
Christian ; for there are Christians and Christians. There 
are clean Christians and dirty Christians ; good Christians 
and mean Christians. Yes, indeed ; and all sorts of Chris- 
tians. What kind are you? The devib shall never deprive 
me of the joy of being a first-class Christian — gilt edged. A 
No. i, praise the Lord ; and it all comes by " Thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven." Just surrender yourself 
sweetly to the will of the Lord by an everlasting surrender. 
I did it the 25th of August, 1876. I read you my pledge 
there — my surrender. I have never added to it : I have 
never taken from it. I have been more intelligent in it, too, 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 135 

every day. I have never changed the original terms : they 
shall stand till glory dawns. It is just as good a pledge as 
the Lord wants. It may be mistaken in its terms. Never 
mind. That old pledge, imperfect as it may be in verbiage, 
is true as steel. The Son of God was looking down in my 
heart, and knowing I gave myself to him as best I could, he 
accepted me ; and since then life has flowed on in endless 
song; and I am good for a crown. " So run I not as un- 
certainly, so fight I not as one that beateth the air, but I 
keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that, 
by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself 
should be a castaway." I understand that perhaps better 
than some of you, but I understand this, that he is faithful, 
and that he will keep that which I have committed to his 
trust until that day. I am not afraid of falling. Ah, 
Brother Barnes, but then the Bible says : " Let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Let me read 
that scripture for you. " Let him that thinketh he standeth," 
emphasis on the " He," if you please, then you will under- 
stand it. I do not think George Barnes stands at all. He 
is as limber as a rag. He would fall down, only that Jesus 
sustains him ; Jesus stands in me. When he falls I fall. 
Because he lives I live also, and when he stands I stand. 
I am not a backsliding Christian, I would have you know. 
Anybody almost can tell that that was spoken to backslid- 
ing Christians, and that they were standing in self. No, no. 
The man that is standing in Jesus Christ, if he taketh heed 
lest he falls, he is living below his privilege. I never 
take heed lest I fall ; never, and never expect to. I will 
tell you I do a great deal better than that. I look right in 
the face of my dear Jesus ; that is a great deal better than 
looking at my feet. Looking unto Jesus, the author of a 
finished work that is well done. 



136 THE lord's prayer. 

" Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." 
What does that mean ? There are three places, as we all 
know. There is heaven ; there is earth, and there is hell. 
In hell God's will is done ; of course it is. I agree that far 
with our theology ; in hell God's will is done. How ? It 
is done perforce. " Every knee shall bow and every tongue 
shall confess that Jesus is the Lord." Men think that they 
will get rid of blessing Jesus if they just slip along in the 
earth. Not at all. Out of every anguished tongue ; out 
of every writhing heart ; out of every blazing lip shall come 
the tortured shriek ; " Jesus is Lord. Oh, glory to God 
the Father." Devils shall do it. Damned men shall do it, 
for O, Brother, every tongue shall call Jesus Lord, of things 
in heaven, of things on earth, of things under the earth — 
but I do not want to praise the Lord in that way I do not 
want to call Jesus Lord because I have to do it. No. 
Obedience in hell is perforce. That is hellish obedience ; 
but we are talking about "Thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven ; " not as it is in hell. Ah, that is the way so 
many Christians do the will of God ; do it because it is 
" my duty." Are you going to Church this morning ? 
"Well, I do not want to, but it is my duty," and you go in 
and sit in your pew, all silver-plated, that you would not let 
a poor man come in to save your life, and sit on a cushioned 
seat with a piece of brussels carpet under foot — frost-bitten 
thing. "Do you feel like going to Sunday School?" 
" Yes, yes, I must. I will do my duty if it kills me." It 
will kill you before you reach man's allotted age. That is 
the reason people die so young, "duty, duty." How many 
cadaverous faces there are in the Church of people that are 
dying doing duty. My friends, that is hellish obedience. 
I do not say that there is not a modicum of blessing in it. 
I do not say that it is not better than nothing at all, mark 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 137 

you ; but I say it is not heavenly obedience. How is His 
will done in heaven ? They do it because they want to do 
it. There is not a child in heaven that shouts the praises 
of God from a sense of duty ; no more than I would love 
my wife from a sense of duty ; no more than I would visit 
my dear old mother at ninety-six from a sense of duty. 
Suppose I had done so, and said, mother, I considered it my 
duty to come and see you — came from a sense of duty. She 
would have said — for she was a very spirited old lady — well, 
you can just leave from a sense of duty. I do not want to 
serve the Lord from a sense of duty. I do it because I de- 
light to do thy will, O, God ; and it just comes from one 
sweet little everlasting surrender of the will, and henceforth 
he works in you to will and to do his dear, sweet good 
pleasure ; praise the Lord ; walking worthy of the father 
unto all pleasing — not unto all pain. Ninety-nine Christians 
out of a hundred walk worthy of the father unto all pain. 
There is just one way to do it, and there is only one way. 
" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, where every 
one serves him with a joyous alacrity. " Ye angels that ex- 
cel in strength" — Hear David talking about the angels — "that 
excel in strength," doing his will, "harkening unto the voice 
of his word." That is the way, Lord, I will serve you, just 
as they serve in heaven. How ? In degree ? No, for an 
angel excels in strength, and I excel in weakness. There 
is a great difference, my friends. I am not angelic at all. 
I am only a man down here on earth, but walking worthy 
of the father unto all pleasing. Angels that excel in strength 
are expected to become strong in his power. Creatures 
down here, begirt by ten thousand disabilities, with hell and 
the flesh and the devil all about them. God does not ask 
them to do what he asks angels to do — certainly not, for he 
lays upon his children, old and young, as they can bear. 



138 THE lord's prayer. 

The angels are the oldest born and we are the youngest. 
He lays upon us just sweet little work that will develope us ; 
make us grow rapidly without let or hindrance or check ; 
praise his blessed name. 

One word more as to how we are to get all this blessing. 
Remember, now, God, as a loving Father, never asks his 
children to do anything they cannot do easily. How is this 
all going to be done ; the practical part ? How can I come 
into that special blessing ? You see it opens up to me a 
new world, as if I had been transferred to another planet. 
I can see the blessedness, but how can I exchange this life 
of dreary duty ; this mountai. of service for the service of 
an angel ? I can tell you if you will listen to me. Every 
human theory is based upon this radical lie, that man can 
do something ; but your will cannot change a single one of 
your habits, unless you are one of the devil's agents. Your 
will may be present with you, but how to do anything good 
you find not. The highest will is lost and ruined. It sits 
upon the throne, but it is a lost and ruined thing, fallen 
from heaven to earth, and it is powerless. My friends, do 
not try to do anything yourself ; if you do you will fail. 
When you have got a sin to tackle, you grab hold of it with 
that strong will, and you say ; I have been in the habit of 
carrying out things which I set my hand to do. You can 
set your mind to do, and to carry out, on the devil's ground. 
You can do mean things as often as you set your mind to it, 
but you try to do good things, and by-and-bye the conceit 
will be taken out of you, and you will be where holy Paul 
was ; " For to will is present with me, but how to perform 
that which is good I find not." How are you going to get 
a victory ? There is will, but it is inoperative. " Oh, 
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this 
body of death." Commentators say kings in the old tyran- 



THE LORD'S PKAYER. 139 

nical times used to fasten a dead body on a man, and let it 
rot until it rotted him to pieces, but there is no such thing 
in history, sacred or profane. It is a pure tissue cut out of 
whole cloth in order to explain a thing in the scriptures 
they did not understand. Certainly that was not a common 
thing ; never heard of such a punishment. What Paul de- 
scribes is like a man with the palsy. There you are, lying 
on your bed. You have a strong, active will, and half of 
you is dead. You say to your hand, " Go up," and try to 
move it ; it will not go. There it lies, and you have to take 
your other hand and lift it. It is a dead stick ; and by-and- 
bye you say, lie down on the coverlet, and you put it there, 
and there it lies like a dead stick, and you have to take your 
hand to lay it back. The nexus is cut between the will and 
the power. I say now to my hand, go up, and it goes up. 
Go down, and it goes down. It is perfectly obedient to my 
will. I can do anything I want with it ; but suppose I had 
palsy, the nexus is cut. That is the Christian that wants to 
do the will and cannot do it, so that you cannot do the 
things that you would. I adhere to the old fashioned trans- 
lation of that. 

My friends, the carnal heart is not subject to the law of 
God. The will may be present, but how to perform that 
which is good you find not. What shall we do with this 
will ? One thing the Cross of Jesus has purchased for you* 
and for me ; and only one thing you can do, and that is, you 
can put it in God's hands. Thank God, there is the open 
door. There is the one door, the narrow door ; there is the 
single door ; there is the only chance for victory, the only 
place. There is one thing that thou canst do. Thou canst 
put thy will in God's dear, hallowed will. You can let it be 
merged in his, and you can do it with eyes looking in God's 
face, with hand on heart, and you can say : " I do surrender 



140 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

now,and henceforth and forever." It is not a matter of ex- 
periment, but it is a never to be retracted surrender. Stand 
by it, and victory shall crown you from that time on. 

Jesus does not ask his disciples to ask for things they do 
not have in their hearts. Their petition is in the Lord's 
prayer, and everything there is higher life. Oh, dear friends, 
I wish you would just come into the dear, sweet, lovable 
will of our God, and he will make you will to do his good 
pleasure. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



" Give us this day our daily bread." 

[Matt. vi. 25-34.] 

The fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer is, " Give us this 
day our daily bread." That is the first petition that I ask 
for myself. The first petition for the Lord is, that I may 
hallow his name. Now you may be sure that God puts 
first first and second second. It may seem to be a trifle, a 
small matter to us, my friends, but God says it is the great 
thing. He always puts the prominent thing first. When- 
ever he puts a thing first, then you may be sure that it is 
first in importance ; for he never puts a small thing at the 
beginning and a great thing at the end, in such a thing 
especially as the Lord's Prayer, in which he teaches us to 
know our wants. The first and greatest want that we have 
is this, "Give us this day our daily bread," as I hope to 
show you. The first want of our souls with regard to God 
is to know who he is, and to hallow the blessed name by 
which he has made himself known. After that we can do 
a great many things for the Lord. Until we know our 
Father, and until we hallow his name, we cannot, as the 
saying is, turn a wheel. And, dear friends, you will find 
that this petition with regard to our own wants, which is yet 
the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer— the first of the 
second division — you will find that that lies at the bottom 
of everything ; therefore Jesus goes on to explain it more 



142 

fully than he does in the petitions. In the matter of prayer 
itself, he gives a warning before he tells them how to pray, 
and after the prayer he gives them something about the for- 
giveness of sins ; and then explains at length this doctrine, 
"Give us this day our daily bread." That is found in the 
sixth chapter of Matthew, from the 25th verse to the close 
of the chapter — the divine reasoning of God as to all our 
Wants. "Take no thought for the morrow;" that is the 
summing up of it all — "for the morrow shall take care of 
itself." God thinks for you ; therefore you have no right 
to think for yourselves. God takes care of you ; therefore 
you do not have to take care of yourselves. God provides 
for you ; therefore you do not have to provide for your- 
selves. This is all argued with divine logic and divine 
beauty. Why ? Because the Lord knows that is just our 
weakest point ; because he knows that that is the point 
upon which we need to be guarded. Because he knows 
that that point of all others is the point where Satan comes 
in upon us. There was just where our friend Abram fell. 
He could leave his own land and go out into another land, 
not knowing whither he went — he could earn the title of 
friend of God by so doing ; but when it came to famine 
being in the land, and bread and meat being the question, 
he broke down utterly, and went off with Sarai to the land 
of Egypt, and there practiced lying as a fine art. Think of 
that faithful man represented as a liar. He was worse than 
common liars, for a saintly liar is the most despicable of all 
liars. Abram was the worst liar I ever heard of in Scrip- 
ture next to the devil ; and yet he was a friend of our 
Father. The bread and meat question is what took him 
away. That is just exactly where the devil got our father 
Isaac. There came another famine in the land ; so off he 
went down into the land of the Philistines, as Abram had 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 143 

down into the land of Egypt. There is exactly where the 
devil got Elimelech, our friend in the Book of Ruth. A 
famine struck the land, and he went into the land of Moab, 
and disaster followed that fatal step. He and both of his 
sons died, and poor Naomi had to come back a widow, pre- 
maturely old, and miserable and wretched. 

Ah, my friends, if we only examine it, we shall find -that 
the inability to trust God for our daily bread gives the devil 
more or less control over millions of lives. Not simply one 
or two, or a thousand, but millions. I know that that is the 
very question in the Gospel ministry ; what am I to do ? 
What am I to eat ? Wherewithal shall I be clothed. Salary 
settles everything. I speak now in general. Once in a while 
a man will rise above this question, but in the main we are 
all held in bondage by the meat and bread question ; for 
minister's salaries are not generally very liberal, and the 
meat and bread question is one of the closest. Ah, my 
friends, how unfaithful it makes us to our trusts if we are not 
sound on the meat and bread question. Did you ever hear 
of a man — I mean in the general ministry — that could hear 
a loud call from God when asked to leave a salary of one 
thousand dollars and accept a salary of five hundred dol- 
lars ? I would like to shake hands with that minister ; pull 
off my hat, take the shoes off my feet — I think I would in- 
deed, for the place where that man stands is holy ground. 
Did you ever hear of a minister that got a loud call from 
God to go from a five hundred dollar salary to a thousand 
dollar salary? There is nothing like that call from heaven. 
It is as loud and distinct as though the heavens had burst 
right open, and God himself spoke by word of mouth. The 
bread and meat question. Ah, I am speaking to many good 
Christians who know the truth of these remarks ; and so it 
goes, my friends, and that is the reason our ministers are all 



144 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

bound hand and foot. Why, two or three rich people in a 
congregation can completely control a minister, so that he 
does not dare to open his mouth and discipline a man that 
is worth a hundred thousand dollars and subscribes liberally 
towards the minister's salary. It will not do, although his 
conduct may be such that if he was a poor man, his dis- 
missal would be swift and certain. There is a homely proverb 
which says, " that money makes the mare go ;" and this 
mercenary action has gained full credit in the church. Money 
makes the church go. We are all witnesses of this. I pray 
God you may learn this petition in the Lord's prayer. Not 
to pursue this painful subject any further as to the ministry, 
where the main mischief is, let us come down to our own 
family circles. How many a man and woman is kept in a 
constant state of wretchedness, because they do not know 
how to trust the Lord for bread and meat. In other words, 
they have not learned to pray as Jesus wants to teach all 
his disciples, " Give me this day my daily bread." That is, 
Lord, you give me my bread. I do not make it myself. I 
make my bread myself, you say ; then you will have a hard 
time making it. You will never have any rest. If you take 
care of the meat and bread question, you will always be in 
trouble about it. Let the Lord care for it as he cares for 
the little birds, making their homes upon the trees. There 
is God's storehouse for the littls birds. They do not sow 
nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly father 
feeds them. He feeds the sparrows, and five of them sell for 
two farthings, and yet we are afraid that some time or other, 
though God never forgets a bird, he will take a spell of for- 
getfulness, and let us slip, and we will starve. This thing 
pursues a man even when he gets riches. I have seen rich 
men that were afraid of going to the poorhouse at last ; for 
you see this thing brings its own punishment, and the reven- 



THE lord's prayer. 145 

ger comes in this world, not to say in the next. The devil 
knows the weakest point, and God knows the weakest point, 
and therefore the Lord wants to defend us upon that point 
impregnably, and the devil finds this point unguarded so 
often, and so often he takes advantage of it; so that in point 
of fact the earliest thought in the boy's heart is to get rich. 
What does he want to get rich for ? One idea is he wants 
to be independent. Independent of whom ? Well, inde- 
pendent of man, you say. You never were dependent on 
man. Independent of whom ? Let us drive that question 
home to its last analysis, and you will find it means indepen- 
dent of God. A man who is afraid to trust God from day 
to day will begin to lay up something, so that he will be out 
of the hands of God ; so that he can say, I have got so much 
I can go alone. He goes on and accumulates until he can say 
I am safe for all my lifetime. I am independent. If there 
were no God I have got enough to keep myself and family 
till the end of life. Then when a man gets on that course, 
the love of moneycomes in, which is the root of all evil, and 
so the devil leads him where he pleases, and that poor crea- 
ture who started out simply to be independent goes on ac- 
cumulating, and gets more and more possession, until at last 
he stops making money, because he is too old to make any 
more. Then he is too old to enjoy it. Rheumatism comes 
in, and neuralgia, and the devil's aches and pains. He is too 
old and too helpless to enjoy it. What then ? Well, now, 
he sees the prospect of its being squandered, and that gives 
him fifty times more trouble than he had in gathering it 
together. Ah, the devil is a hard master, my friends, for he 
teaches a soul not to trust the Lord from day to day, but to 
go on and be independent. Then greed of gain takes pos- 
session of that man like a thirst for drinking, and he cannot 
stop himself any more than an engine can stop on the down 



MO THE lord's prayeh. 

grade without brakes, and he goes on, and on, and on, until 
the devil lands him in this helpless, rheumatic old age, with 
the greed of gain in his heart. His own children stand around 
his bedside and wish him out of the way, in order that they 
may handle the money freely. How often has that been re- 
peated in the histories of families — how many thousands of 
times ? Is not the devil a hard master ? Does he not give 
a hundred-fold pain and suffering and sorrow, as Jesus gives 
a hundred-fold of blessing and of peace ? Ah, indeed he 
does. And then beyond the curtain, God only knows what 
retribution awaits them. All this comes, my friends, from 
this devil's idea of being independent. Yet most people do 
not get rich. We have not got enough self denial to get rich; 
so most of us do not aim to get rich, but to get a home and 
competence, just to keep the wolf from the door, and "to 
lay up something against a rainy day/' as the devil's proverb 
goes. So my friends, the same principle is involved in get- 
ting a competence. It all means independence of God; get- 
ting along without the help of the Lord. This independence 
of God can be seen just as well in a farmer in the country, 
with his well filled smoke-house or big wood pile, or with 
coal laid in enough for all winter. I am not saying that 
when coal is cheap it is not the time to lay it in. I am not 
saying that when the weather is pleasant we ought not to pile 
up wood, but I have been in that business long enough to 
know that at the bottom of it lies a dangerous principle. 
When I had a big pile of wood I had a very good feeling 
steal through me. Now I have got enough to last me all 
winter. That is exactly the same feeling with which the 
farmer goes into his smoke-house and sees hams and sausa- 
ges, &c, in abundance, and he says, I have got enough to 
" run " me till next spring. Ah, yes, and keep the w r olf from 
the door ; and he has such a delicious sensation. Why does 



THE lord's prayer. 147 

he feel restful ? Because he has got enough to ''run " him 
for a good while. Do you not see it is the same principle 
that the Lord rebukes in the rich fool who said, " Soul, take 
thine ease. Eat, drink and be merry." How ? Why? You 
are independent of God ; that God that you was afraid 
would leave you to starve. Why, you have got ahead of 
him ; you have beaten him. Thou hast much goods laid up 
in store for many years. Now you can rest. As long as 
you had nobody but God to trust, and nothing laid by, you 
could not rest a minute. You might go to the poor house, 
you might meet starvation some day. Yes, anything might 
overtake you in the way of disaster ; but now thou hast 
much goods laid up in store. "Take thine ease ; eat, drink 
and be merry." The principle is exactly the same ; much 
goods laid up to make yourself independent of God. Ah, 
my friends, I am tracing a principle that you have all felt, a 
sensation that you have all had in you, a very comfortable 
feeling, because you are ahead. Whether you are living the 
higher life or the lower life, no matter how many times you 
have said the Lord's prayer, or that you said it in earnest, 
that you trusted the Lord, the devil will come back trying 
to make that feeling of ease and pleasure come over you ; 
trying to make you disloyal to God just by this same sensa- 
tion. 

The meat and bread question is the central question of 
life. If you can trust God for the little things you may be 
sure that you can trust him for the great things. The devil 
does not get us in the great crises of life, for whenever any- 
thing terrible comes on us we go instinctively to God ; fly 
into the arms of Jesus, and do not rest until we are safe 
there. But the devil just takes us in the little things — the 
failure to trust God in little things. Therefore, Jesus gives 
this as the antidote for it, " Lord, give us this dav our dailv 



148 THE lord's prayer. 

bread." That is a very searching prayer, for it says, Dear- 
est Lord, let me so fully trust you that day by day I will 
lean my whole weight upon you, just as my wants arise. 
Oh, Lord, put me in a place where I will not be able to 
walk by sight, but will have to walk by faith ; and Dear 
Lord, if I do not put myself there o,( my own accord lovingly, 
without giving you a bit of trouble, then, Lord, in mercy for 
me, snatch me up and put me there whether I want to go 
there or not. What I want to persuade you is to learn the 
lesson sweetly and simply to go over the Lord's smooth road, 
so that you will not have to go over the rough road; for when 
you make this prayer, and the Lord loves you very tenderly, 
and you will not trust him on the smooth road, and you run 
off and try to put yourself in a position where you cannot 
trust him, the devil has a chance to come in and harass you. 
That is the reason so many Christians suffer. That is why 
Lot was dragged out of Sodom with the loss of every penny 
of his wealth, lands, farms, houses, bank stock, and everything 
he had in the world. Why ? He would not learn to trust 
the Lord day by day. If he had only gone with Abraham 
and learned to trust the Lord day by day, he would still have 
been a rich man. Not that riches in themselves are wrong, 
but those who put their trust in riches are not fit to be 
trusted with riches. 

Thank God, the most of his children are poor ; and they 
are poor because they choose to learn the lesson over the 
rough road ; not because God wants us to be poor. If we 
only would trust him and learn to trust ; if we only held 
every cent as stewards for the Lord, God would commit 
wealth to us ; but we are such miserable trusters, the only 
way the Lord sees is to keep us down with our faces to. the 
grindstone. Praise the Lord for teaching us in that rough 
way. But, beloved, I do not want you to think the Lord 



149 

teaches you in that rough way, but think that the Lord gives 
us all things truly to enjoy ; and the Lord can give us all 
this. Without trust in God there is as much misery in the 
palace as in the most humble cottage. In Kentucky I had 
a beautiful little one story and-a-half cottage, which we 
named the " Pink Cottage," and five acres of ground, and I 
had my bees and chickens and orchard on it, and fifty-five 
varieties of grapes, and stock, and well — a little foundation 
to get ahead so my wife and children would not come to 
want ; and oh, the wretchedness, the misery of it, I tried 
and tried and tried until at last the devil came in, and swal- 
lowed the whole thing in a single gulp, under a big mortgage; 
and then I had to trust the Lord. Then I found out what 
a sweet, good thing it was to trust the Lord, and then 1 
trusted him because I wanted to ; praise the Lord. I never 
want to get ahead again. 

Many a Christian, and the world is full of them, when 
they are dealt thus with by the devil, when their property is 
going and everything is against them, they say, Oh, dear, 
what a miserable creature I am. Oh, Lord, you are against 
me. Everything is against me. No, no. You are going 
exactly on the right road. You are getting to where you 
will have to trust God. 

I remember my little Willie when he was knee high, he 
was in Hustonville, and he thought he was going home. He 
was hunting all around town and got lost, though it only had 
two streets. He got lost and started up the pike towards 
Danville, running as hard as his little short legs could carry 
him. He met a man who stopped him in the street and 
asked where he was going. " I am going home." Who are 
you, said the man. " I am preacher Barnes' son. I am 
going home." Says the man, I know where your father is, 
now, come along. Says the boy I am going home. No, I 



150 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

know your are not, and he took him in his arms and carried 
him home, and when he got him home, he nearly had a spasm. 
He would have gone nearly to Danville if he had not been 
stopped. When he found he was safe at home he was very 
glad. 

When you get down to the place where you find yourself 
at home, and learn that it is sweet to trust the Lord, then you 
will thank God as I did for letting the devil gulp the "pink 
cottage," Alderney stock, fifty-five kinds of grapes, and 
everything ; praise the Lord it is all gone, and I never 
want to see it again. 

I want to tell you how sweet it is to trust the Lord from 
day to day, to have this simple, sweet faith. Lord, I am 
going to trust you and trust you alone ; and as far as the 
devil tries to get me comfortable from the thought of not 
having to trust you, I am going to resist him, steadfast in 
faith. 

You see, dear friends, the Lord takes great pains to set 
us right on this cardinal point of trusting the Lord in little 
things, in the very least things. Therefore the first petition 
in the Lord's prayer that concerns you and me, now that we 
have honored God, hallowed His name, called for his king- 
dom to come, and asked for his will to be done on earth as 
it is in heaven — the first thing for you and me is to learn to 
trust God in little things, and the difficulty of trusting God 
in little things is the fact that we think we can do the little 
things ourselves. There is where it comes so hard. The 
little things we think we are suffering for. When it comes 
to the matter of saving a man's soul, pure instinct tells us 
that we cannot do it, and we come down pretty soon on 
that question. God must save the soul. It is too much for 
us to attempt, therefore we put it in his hands ; but when it 
comes to the matter of meat and bread and the little things, 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 151 

we say, " Now, any man ought to be able to do that, and we 
try to do it ourselves, and there is where we are deceived ; 
there is where we make a shipwreck of faith. If you try to 
do it yourself that is not faith. If you let God do it for you 
it is faith. Therefore the man that loves money and ac- 
cumulates it is said to make a shipwreck of faith. Why ? 
He puts himself in the place where it is impossible to trust, 
makes a shipwreck of faith, and the man who puts himself 
where he cannot trust God is bound to be miserable. The 
way to get rid of all this devilment is just to put small 
things into the Lord's hand, and say, Lord, I cannot do 
anything. 

Your wife goes into the kitchen, and says, My mother 
taught me to bake biscuits, and I can do it. Can you really 
make a biscuit bake ? That is just the thing you cannot 
do, and before you get through the Lord proves to you that 
you cannot do it. How do you do it ? You make up your 
biscuit all right, and the rising is all right, and everything 
is all right, but before you get through baking that biscuit, 
you touch your knuckle on the stove, and say : " Plague 
take the stove, I always burn my hand." You have lost 
your temper. If you think that you can bake a biscuit the 
devil tells you you cannot, and says he, it is not rightly cooked 
until it is done just right on both sides, and you have to 
keep it sweet and clean through the whole operation, that is 
baking biscuits, and the devil sees you cannot get through 
that. So, my friends, you sit down at the sewing machine, 
and you have sewed on it for years, and you say ; if there is 
one thing I can do I can run the sewing machine. You go 
on, and by-and-bye the pesky thing gets out of order. Of 
course you cannot find what is the matter with the sewing 
machine. You turn that crank, and unscrew something, 
and that does not help it. The old thing keeps breaking 



152 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

stitches, and at last you say, I never saw a machine like that. 
It is enough to drive a saint distracted. What is the mat- 
ter ? What are you kicking that poor iron table for ? You 
thought you could sew on a sewing machine, and the devil 
is saying you cannot do it. You have not trusted God in 
little things. If you had gone into the kitchen saying, Lord, 
there is nothing in me, I can not do a little thing like baking a 
biscuit, but you can do it. Then you would go through the 
whole operation with a smile upon your face. Your biscuit 
will be done and turned, and your husband will say, Why, wife, 
I never tasted such a biscuit as this since I was born. That 
is the way when God cooks it. If the devil cooks it it will 
be burned on the under side and undone on top, and it will 
make the old man as mad as a hornet, and may be you will 
burn your finger in the bargain. 

I am on very practical ground, my friends, for religion is 
a practical thing. It is a thing of the kitchen ; it is a thing 
of the wash-tub, or it is not worth anything; for most 
women have to break their backs over the wash-board sup- 
porting some man. It is a thing of the parlor, a thing of 
the dining-room, a thing of the school-room, and these little 
cares of life will worry you to death if you do not put 
them in the Lord's hands ; let him attend to them ; let him 
do everything for you. Just throw the flesh overboard, and 
say you cannot do anything anyhow. Get down to the bot- 
tom of the thing, and say : O Lord, in me there is no wis- 
dom and there is no strength ; and commit the thing to 
him. The minute you do that he takes it up, and does it. 
" Gi^e us this day our daily bread." Oh, sweet dependence 
on the Lord for meat and bread ; for that is a thing you 
have to have three times a day ; and if you ever can trust 
the Lord for meat and bread, you can trust him for every- 
thing. Oh, ye of little faith. Do you want God to say 



THE lord's prayer. 153 

that to you ? I would rather suffer acute bodily pain than 
for God to say once, " Oh, ye of little faith." That is to 
me a sharper pang than any wound the devil can inflict. 
Do you want the Lord to be always saying to you, " Oh, ye 
of little faith." I say, No, no, no. I want him to look me 
in the face and say, " I have not found such faith, no, not 
in Israel." Freely trust the Lord for little things. He says 
he numbers the hairs of your head. Your mother never 
did that ; your father never did that. They love you, do 
they not ? But I will warrant you they never counted the 
hairs in your head ; but your Heavenly Father did. I do 
not know how many hairs I have had since I was a Chris- 
tian, but I know God has numbered every one of them. 
Oh, ye of little faith. Why will you doubt him in little 
things — in the smaller things of life ? If he numbers the 
hairs of your head, commit the hairs to him. If he num- 
bers every moment of your life, commit every moment to 
him. If God comes down to the very least things of life, 
then let the cooking of a biscuit, let the making of a bed, 
let the sweeping of a room, let the nursing of a sick child, 
let the mending of an old pair of pantaloons, which is very 
trying to a person, bring out the strength and the power of 
God, for I tell you, my friends, the same power that was 
needed to make a world is absolutely necessary in these 
little, ordinary things of life. In other words, you cannot 
get along without bringing up God at the head of them, 
and all the resources you have following in his train. You 
cannot do the very smallest thing in life without his help. 
If you undertake it, the devil will beat you on it as sure as 
you are a man or a woman. Therefore, to guard this point, 
Jesus teaches you first of all, before you ask for anything 
else, to pray for your daily bread. At first it looks to be 
more important that we should say, " Forgive us our tres- 



154: THE lord's prayer. 

passes, as we forgive those who trespass against us," or 
" lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil 
one/' but, no ; the most important one is put first. The 
first thing that God wants you to learn is to trust him in 
every little thing in life ; therefore, submit the least, the 
smallest thing to him. I cannot tell you how happy I have 
been since the Lord has taught me that lesson, though I 
slip now and then. I do not put on rubber shoes without 
asking the Lord. I do not change my thick under-clothing 
without asking the Lord. You do it on your own wisdom, 
and you will be chilled in the spring, and burned up with 
your hot under-clothing in the fall, and may be have a spell 
of sickness When I buy a hat, or buy a coat, or buy a 
pair of boots or a pair of shoes, I take that to the Lord 
just as much as I do the salvation of my soul, for I have 
committed all things into his hands, and he has taken every- 
thing into his hands. He will do it if you only commit it 
to him. He will keep that which I have committed to him 
unto the end. If I had not committed it unto him, he 
would not have kept it. Commit to his keeping the hairs 
of your head, and he will not smite you with baldness. 
Commit your ways unto the Lord, and he will direct your 
steps — not each general direction, but every step as you 
take it. "The steps of a man are ordered by the Lord. 
He shall give his angels charge over thee in all thy ways. 
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou 
dash thy foot against a stone." 

Brother, sister, is not that sweet ? You commit every- 
thing to him, and he will take charge of everything. Man, 
do not try to make your own living. Woman, do not try 
to keep house. Men and women, do not try to do any- 
thing. Trusting is everything. Then will you be idle ? 



THE lord's prayer. 155 

No ; you will be the most industrious people in the world. 
Will you be happy ? You will. Will you wear out with 
your industry ? No ; your mouth will be filled with laugh- 
ter, and instead of the devil making marks upon your 
faces, God will make your very flesh to stand out with fat- 
ness. Praise his dear name forever and forever. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



" Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those 
who trespass against us. 11 

The fifth petition of the Lord's prayer, is the second want 
of the human soul. The first is, Trust God in little things. 
That is the first want. And you can make no real progress 
unless you do that ; therefore the Lord puts that first. " Give 
us this day our daily bread ;" that sets you right with the 
Lord. Then the next thing is to set you right with your 
fellow man, " Forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive 
those who trespass against us." 

Dear friends, this is the forgiveness asked for by a saint ; 
never forget that. A sinner cannot make such a prayer as 
that ; because this is a conditional forgiveness. I only ask 
God to forgive me just as far as I forgive others. Would 
you let your eternal salvation turn upon such a point as 
that ? Would you go to the good God to-day and say, O Lord, 
I want you to forgive my sins, and I ask it because I forgive 
those who sin against me ; and if I do not forgive every one 
of their trespasses, why, do not you forgive mine. Would 
you say that ? You see at once, dear friends, it cannot be 
a sinner's prayer. A sinner has got nothing to do with his 
offering such a prayer as that, for you know you never learn 
to forgive the trespasses of others until you get into the 
higher life. That would damn every being in the universe. 
This is a higher life petition ; the petition of those who are 



THE lord's prayer. 157 

already saved, and want to get up on to the higher plane, the 
higher platform. i( Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
those who trespass against us" is exclusively conditional ; 
do you not see it ? Just as I forgive them, so do you forgive 
me. Do you not see that if it were a sinner's prayer it 
would damn every man in the race ; for there never was a 
man or woman that succeeded in forgiving their enemies 
unless they were walking in the life more abundantly. They 
may say they do, but they are deceived. You often hear 
people say, " Oh, yes, I forgive, but I don't forget." Then 
you do not forgive. That is not God's forgiveness. If you 
cannot forget as well as forgive, then you have not forgiven. 
God's forgiveness is, " For thy sins and thine iniquities will 
I remember no more." Forget as well as forgive, if you 
want to be like God. You say that is impossible ; I cannot 
forget. That is where you do not know what you are talk- 
ing about. I know that God will paralyze a man's memory 
on the subject of the transgressions of others, and I know it 
by experience ; and I know if you will come up into the 
higher life, you will say, Brother Barnes, I did not believe 
that, but now I know it. You come to the place where you 
can forget an enemy, and then you will know exactly what I 
mean, for you can not only forgive, but forget ; but if you are 
living down in the 7th of Romans, the lower Christian life, 
and you say, " the things I would I do not, but the things I 
would not those I do," you will never forgive your enemies. 
You have got to get up higher before you do that. You can 
no more do it than you can do any other impossible thing. 
The last thing that our blessed Saviour said was, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do." That was 
the last thing he said. That was the crowning act of a glori- 
ous life of symmetrical growth and of perpetual and un- 
checked progress. Everything comes in its proper place. 



158 the lord's prayer. 

" P'ather, forgive them, for they know not what they do," 
that was the crowning act of his life and it is very signifi- 
cant, my friends. It is the very triumph of Christian grace. 
It is the halo that streams from the Cross of Christ, which 
settled on the martyred Stephen, and which has graced the 
dying moments of saints in every subsequent age, but it 
does not belong to the sinner. It does not even belong to 
the Christian in the 7th of Romans. None but the Chris- 
tian who is walking in the life more abundantly, and who 
has that perfect love that casts out fear and casts out mis- 
ery and everything of that kind, can rise to the grandeur of 
this forgiveness. It is an evil under the Sun that the devil 
has brought this ripest demand of the Christian life, and 
has clapped it on a sinner and made it a condition sine qua 
non to salvation. Let us illustrate it : 

I was in Judge Peter's library in Mt. Sterling, Ky., not 
long ago, and was looking over his biglibrary,and I saw there 
the " Life of Andrew Jackson " by James Parton, in three 
volumes. I was always an admirer of old Andy ; admired 
him as a statesman and soldier ; liked his pluck and obstina- 
cy. I said I will skim over this book. I took it down and 
looked over the table of contents, and saw " The conver- 
sion of General Jackson." Immediately I said I will see 
how old Andy was converted. I knew he died a Christian. 
I knew he had not lived a Christian. I knew he had been 
a thorough child of the devil. I said now I will see how 
Andy got to be a child of God ; and I went over the road 
substantially as follows : 

The old General, in his latter days, when he was about to 
die, began to bethink himself of eternity. May be he had 
thought of it very often, but now he began to be in earnest. 
He went over the old road just as we have been taught. He 
thought in the first place he would have to feel very bad 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 159 

about his sins — and he had plenty of sins to feel bad about. 
He did not have to go very far. He was an awful old blas- 
phemer. He had sworn more oaths than he had hairs on his 
head. He was an awful wicked old man, and did not have 
far to go to find out sins enough to make him thoroughly 
miserable. When he had got up a complete state of misery 
so he could not sleep nights comfortably,he thought he would 
send out for a 'spiritual physician in Nashville. He sent 
for Dr. Edgar, an old personal friend, and a very excellent, 
good man — I am not saying anything against him personally, 
but against the diabolical system under which we were all 
raised, I among the rest. So this good brother ; a doctor of 
divinity, &c, LL. D. for all I know, went out to see old 
Andy there at the Hermitage, and it gives the talk that they 
had. It was something like this : 

General Jackson, do you feel (Oh, we used to go on feel- 
ing in those days), do you feel that you are an awful sinner 
in the sight of God ? 

Oh, yes, Doctor, said he, I have hardly slept a wink for a 
week. In fact I am a mere skeleton. I don't know what is 
going to become of me. I will die if I do not get this load 
lifted from me. 

Have you resolved by the grace of God to quit all your 
sins ? 

Oh, yes. 

And he clenched that old under jaw of his ; and when he 
did that he meant business, whether it was to fight the bat- 
tle of New Orleans, till he won victory, or break up the old 
United States Bank, or to kill a man in duel, whenever he 
set that jaw he did it. 

I am resolved by the grace of God to turn over a new leaf, 
and live a new life. 



160 THE LOKD'S PKAYEE. 

And will you teach yourself to believe in God, my friend, 
and live a Christian life as far as God's grace shall enable 
you ? 

Oh, yes ; I am determined to do that. 

Very well, now, I have got one more question to ask you, 
General, do you heartily forgive your enemies? 

The old man knit his brow, and looked at him. Says he, 
No ; I do not. 

He was too honest to lie. He was not a liar ; that was 
not one of his weak points. He was a truthful man. Says 
he, no ; I do not. I hate them. 

Well, said the minister, don't you think you can forgive 
them ? 

Well, I don't know. I might some of them — I might let 
them off if they just kept out of my sight ; but the rest I 
will just hate till doomsday. 

Said he, General, I cannot give you any hope. Here it is 
written (and he pulled out his Bible.) Here it is written in 
the 6th Chapter of Matthew, " If you forgive not men their 
trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you 
your trespasses." And then he turned over to the 18th 
Chapter of Matthew, and there read the parable of the ser- 
vant that, having received forgiveness, refused to forgive the 
small debt his servant owed him. Says he: 

General, there is the Scripture for it. I would not dare 
to give you hope unless you can heartily forgive your ene- 
mies ; I cannot on the authority of God give you the least 
assurance that you are forgiven. 

Yet, says the General, I cannot forgive them. There is 
no use lying about it. 

Says the minister, go and pray over it, and I will see you 
in the morning. The doctor went and ate his supper ; ate 
broiled chicken, waffles and toast, and drank his nice cup 



THE LOKD'S PBAYER. 161 

of tea, went to bed and slept the sleep of the just, leaving 
poor Andy up in his room, raving like a tiger in his cage, 
wrestling with this mighty question, whether he would for- 
give his enemies or not. The General came down the next 
morning pale and ghastly. He had walked his room all 
night. Says the minister ? 

General, how is it this morning ? Are you willing to for- 
give your enemies ? 

Says the General, yes I do ; and he grated his teeth. He 
never told a bigger lie in his life. That was a lie straight 
out. He did not forgive them any more than he did the 
evening before. A man does not grate his teeth when he 
forgives his enemies. As for forgetting, he did not know 
anything about that. 

Praise the Lord, says the doctor, now we will let you into 
the church ; and the general joined the church. Very likely 
before he died he learned to forgive his enemies, but if he 
thought he forgave them there he never made a bigger blun- 
der in his life. I just give you this as an illustration. It is 
quite of a part with that of the poor fellow that thought God 
was going to damn him unless he was willing to give up his 
sweetheart, because it was written in the scriptures- "Unless 
a man is willing to forsake father and mother and wife and 
children, and houses and lands for my sake, he cannot be 
my disciple." Here the devil brought one of the ripest 
privileges of a saint, and laid it upon a poor sinner, and 
crushed him flat. Ah, what a devil he is — what a diabolical 
devil, with a bible under his arm, quoting scripture. Can 
the devil quote scripture so as to crush a sinner ? Yes, crush 
him like a fly ; certainly he can. Then the only way to get 
out of it is to lie out of it, as the general did. I was asked 
questions when I joined the church, by old Father King, 
who was then at the head of the session in the Presbyterian 



162 

Church, which was number one of the four that have been 
built on that spot, and I will venture to say I told half a 
dozen first class lies in order to get into the church. I did 
not have any experience at all except this, that I was willing 
to let Jesus Christ save me ; and when he wanted to save 
me, I was willing enough ; and if they had just let me alone 
on that, and said, will you take Jesus as best you can receive 
him. I would have been as clear as a sunbeam on that ; but 
they asked me how I felt, what I felt I could do ; what I did 
do, and this, that and the other. They have quit most of 
that devilment now, and they let a man in easier ; because 
the gospel has had its way in these latter days, and it is pro- 
ducing its leaven even on the church sessions. The Baptists 
used to put a man into a high heat, and scorch him nearly 
to death before they could get him into the church. Now 
they want to let him in as quick as possible. They have 
thrown down these old barriers and rules that put a helpless 
child through the catechism that would puzzle a Christian to 
answer straight out, and tell the truth. Now you are looking 
very hard at me, as if you did not like it very well. I do 
not care whether you do or not. I am going to tell the truth 
and shame the devil ; and if you are on the devil's side I am 
going to shame you. This is a shaft the devil himself casts 
against the gospel — against the finished work of Jesus ; and 
whenever I see anything of the kind I am going to fight it 
as long as God gives me breath, for I have entered this war, 
and it is war to the knife. I will allow no work of the devil 
to kill the work of Jesus Christ, and put up barriers in front 
of the sinner — barriers so high that the sheep have to jump 
way up to get a little nibble, and the lambs cannot touch it 
at all. 

So, this forgiveness of sins has got nothing to do with the 
sinner, and all such questions propounded to a sinner, as to 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 163 

whether he forgives his enemies, you might as well ask a 
child just born where its teeth and beard were. It is not 
time for him to have teeth and beard. 'When it comes time 
for him to have teeth they will grow ; when the time comes 
for him to have a beard it will grow ; but on the little baby 
you cannot get them. I want you to quickly understand 
that forgiveness of our trespasses as we forgive those who 
trespass against us belongs to the Christian in a very ad- 
vanced stage of the Christian life ; and you never can do it 
unless previously you have learned to say, Our Father, and 
go through and through with it ; and hallowed be Thy 
name, and thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven ; and until you have learned to trust God 
for your daily bread, for the little things, do not even dream 
you can ask your heavenly Father to forgive your trespasses 
as you forgive those who trespass against you. 

We have all learned the Lord's prayer when we were chil- 
dren. We have said it a thousand times apiece, I dare say, 
if we have been piously raised ; but you never said it so 
that God heard it ; not once, unless you know a great deal 
more about Christianity than I think you do — unless you are 
walking in the higher life. If you are there, then you know 
what it is to say Father, forgive us our trespasses, for we 
also forgive all those who trespass against us. Forgive us 
our debts only as we forgive our debtors. Oh, Lord, I do 
not want you to forgive me if I do not forgive my enemies ; 
that is the meaning of it. I do not ask you to do it Lord, 
but because I heartily forgive all my enemies, therefore I 
come, hand on heart and open eye, looking into your eyes, 
and I say, Dear Lord, forgive my trespasses as I forgive 
others. So we must find out this fact, my friends, and that 
is what I want to show you ; that there is forgiveness and 
forgiveness ; that there is the sinner's forgiveness and the 



164 THE lord's prayer. 

saint's forgiveness, and the two are just as distinct as the 
sinner's justification and the saint's justification, just as dif- 
ferent as the sinner's sanctification and the saint's sanctifi- 
cation ; just as different as a sinner's being born again and 
a saint's being born again ; and again and again I call your 
attention to this duality. It runs all through the scripture. 
A sinner's kingdom is to be born into the kingdom. Unless 
a man is born again he cannot enter. A saint's kingdom is 
for you to hold the plow to the end of the furrow. If you 
put your hand to the plow and look back you are not fit for 
the kingdom. That is the saint's kingdom. We must hold 
the plow handles to the end of the furrow, and run a straight 
furrow clear to the end. The sinner's salvation is to him that 
believeth. " He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ 
shall be saved and have everlasting life," only that, nothing 
moie. " He shall not come into the judgment because he 
has passed from death unto life." The saint's everlasting 
life is, " if you will leave father and mother and wife and 
children and houses and lands for my sake and the gospel, ye 
shall have an hundred fold in this age, and in the age coming, 
life everlasting." The sinner's born again is " Unless a man 
is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. The 
saint's born again is, " He that is born of God doth not 
commit sin, for he cannot sin, because his seed remaineth 
in him." That is a very different born, my friends. Ah, there 
is many a sinner born again that commits sin every day and 
hour ; but if you want to know the saint's born again 
you must go higher up than that. He that believeth that 
Jesus is the Christ is born of God ; that is the saint's born 
of God, because, my friends, the sinner does not know any- 
thing about Christ or the anointed one. A sinner knows 
about Jesus. Jesus means Savior, but Christ means anoin- 
ted. The sinner believes that Tesus is a Savior and he is 



THE lokd's prayek. 165 

born again. He is born a child, has his name written in the 
family register, or the Lamb's book of life ; but, dear friends, 
he never, never knows this second borning until he knows 
that Jesus is Christ. Jesus and Christ are two very differ- 
ent words. He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born 
of God, and he that is born of God doth not commit sin. 
Ah, that is life more abundantly ; that is life where we have 
access unto Christ. 

So, a sinner's forgiveness is this/' in him we have redemp- 
tion." There is the blood, the forgiveness of sins accord- 
ing to the riches of his grace, not according to merit ; but 
here in this second forgiveness, or the saint's forgiveness, we 
have forgiveness according to deserving. It is because I 
have forgiven heartily, therefore God forgives me. One is 
the sinner's forgiveness, which is synonymous with salvation; 
another is the saint's forgiveness, which is synonymous with 
fellowship. For if I have not forgiven my brother for his 
trespasses, neither will my father forgive my trespasses. That 
is spoken to one who has been washed, and made whiter 
than snow ; that is spoken to a man whose sins are forgiven, 
and who has redemption through the blood according to the 
riches of his grace. So, there is forgiveness and forgiveness. 
A sinner's forgiveness means life in heaven and deliverance 
from hell, and a saint's forgiveness means restoration to fel- 
lowship — with the joy and fellowship of your Father, and 
with the Son, Je^us Christ. That you cannot have if you 
have aught against your brother or your brother has aught 
against you. Just let me quote a scripture that will prove 
this. u Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and 
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee ; 
leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way." Hold 
on, says the Lord. Don't you offer that, stop — peremptory 
— don't you offer that. What is the matter, Lord ? This 



166 THE lord's prayer. 

is a good offering. I know it is. Do you remember that 
your brother has got anything against you ? Oh, Lord, yes; 
that is a fact ; my brother ; yes. Leave your gift at the al- 
tar ; don't you dare to offer it to me. Go be reconciled with 
thy brother,then come and offer your gift and it will be accep- 
ted. If you offer it otherwise it will be a curse to you in- 
stead of a blessing. Oh, how many people have been cursed 
at the altar of God because they have offered unsanctified 
offerings. Do you know that ? How many people have 
been cursed by the devil right at God's altar, as poor Job 
was, holding on to the holiest altar. The altar has got noth- 
ing to sanctify you unless you are in a sanctified condition ; 
unless you are all right before God. In the very precincts 
of the house of God the gathering saints shall witness the 
death of Ananias and Sapphira if there they dare to lie 
against the Holy Ghost. Do not go and offer your gift to 
God as if your hands and your feet were clean unless they 
are clean. God demands truth in the inward parts, there- 
fore he halts you peremptorily. Leave your gift at the altar. 
First be reconciled to your brother, and then offer your gift. 
Then have full fellowship with the Father and with his Son 
Jesus Christ. You cannot have that without. 

If you have a joy it will be an illusive joy gotten up by 
the devil ; a counterfeit of the true note. Remember what 
God says : If we say we have fellowship with him and walk 
in darkness we lie. That is a little ugly three-cornered word, 
1-i-e. What are you going to do about it? God says it. If 
we walk in darkness, and say we have fellowship with him 
we lie. I can walk in darkness ever so much, and say I am 
a child. That is, the dear God will never deny his paren- 
tage. God will never deny I am his child. I become his 
child, not because I am good and walk in the light, but be- 
cause I believe in his Son, who was given in my place, and 



THE lord's prayer. 167 

died in my stead, whose blood cleanses me, and makes me 
whiter than snow. I am a child because I am bad. I am 
a child because I am a child of the devil, nothing else. Not 
a good Christian at all ; but, my friends, when you come to 
talk about fellowship, you have got to be a good child. A 
good child can hold fellowship with the Father, none else. 
A bad child never will. A naughty child of yours is not in 
fellowship with you. He may be loved tenderly by you, 
cared for by you, but is not in fellowship with you. Fellow- 
- ship is based on character. 

There is the sinner's forgiveness and the saint's forgive- 
ness. Remember there is forgiveness and forgiveness. There 
is eternal life and eternal life. There is born again and 
born again. There is love and there is perfect love. There 
is life and there is life more abundantly. There is sealed by 
the spirit and there is filled with the spirit. Remember all 
these are different stages. The forgiveness of a saint means 
full fellowship. The forgiveness of a sinner means sure 
enough salvation in heaven and deliverance from hell. 

Here is the higher life prayer that the Lord bids me come 
and make to my father in heaven. " Dear Father, it is all 
right now. I am at peace with all mankind. Give me the 
light of thy countenance. Let it beam upon me. Oh, Lord, 
let me obtain this testimony that I please you. Let me ob- 
tain this testimony, not simply that I am a child, I have got 
that, and I have had it all along ; but, dear father, I want 
you to testify that I am your good child." He may 
testify you are his child, and the meanest child he ever had. 
You say to your bad child : my child, don't do that, or my 
child, why do you do that ? but you always preface it with 
" my child." When you offend your Father he says, my child, 
why will you do these wretched things ? Always the child. 
You never forget the child even when you are going to whip 



168 THE lord's prayer. 

it. My child, I must punish you very severely. You are 
not holding fellowship with your child ; that is a very dif- 
ferent thing from coming to your child and putting your 
hand on his head and saying, darling, papa is pleased with 
you to-day. You are so good. Do you know it gives me 
so much pleasure to tell you so. Here is a present of a 
watch that your father has brought you because you are his 
good child ; you do not give me any trouble. 

If anything interferes with this sweet and joyous fellow- 
ship, like falling out with your brother or sister, don't you 
dare to try to have fellowship with your father while you are 
out of fellowship with your brother or sister. I have seen 
Christians try to do it, and that is the reason they fall into 
the dull routine of going to church, and saying prayers, and 
reading so many chapters in the Bible, substituting the hol- 
low shell for the kernel, for in them it is nothing but shell. 
That is what John talks about. "A name to live out the 
Savior with the mouth." John speaks about having a name 
to live while we are dead in trespasses and sins ; dead to 
usefulness, dead to joy, dead to happiness, dead to fellow- 
ship. That is the expression there is concerning a saint. 
That is not a dead sinner. Ah, my friends, how much piety 
there is in this church-going order — a hollow shell without 
a kernel in it. Did you ever walk along in the woods and 
pick up a good, nice looking hickory nut — looking as 
though it had something in it, but you look at it, there is a 
hole in it. What is the matter ? There is nothing in it. A 
squirrel has been there before you. My friends there is 
many and many a Christian that has got just that kind of 
religion. You take them up and you think they are very 
good, because they are regular at church and all that, and 
when you come to look at them, the devil has eaten the ker- 
nel of religion out. 



THE lord's prayer. 169 

My friend, how many substitute this hollow form for real 
fellowship of the Father and of his Son Jesus Christ. In- 
deed, dear friends, that is the prevailing type of religion, 
and I want you to know it ; and it is an evil under the Sun. 
It is the saddest thing in this world. We think we are get- 
ting along pretty well if we go to church. I say, How are 
you getting along ? Pretty well. Well, what do you mean 
by pretty well ? I always make it a rule to be at my place 
in church on Sunday twice a day. Yes, yes, and what else? 
And I always make it a religious duty to be at prayer meet- 
ing, because most of the others do not get to prayer meeting. 
What else ? I read a chapter in the morning and read a 
chapter at night. And what about fellowship with the Father 
and with the Son, Jesus Christ ; what about sweet, unclouded 
fellowship, and the conscious presence of the living Savior? 
Oh, that is all fanaticism. And you are getting along pretty 
well ? Yes, yes. Is not that common ? Suppose I go to a 
minister, and I say, My friend, how are you getting along 
with your charge ? Oh, pretty well. What do you mean by 
pretty well ? Well, the people come pretty regularly to 
meeting. We have good congregations Sunday night, and 
on Sunday morning so, so. On Wednesday night there is an 
awful falling off. They do not like to come to prayer meet- 
ing much or lecture. It is a rather dull service. How many 
souls have been saved ? When did you have any additions 
to your church ? Well, about six months ago we took in 
one by letter. And before that ? Well, I don't know. I 
don't think we have had any for a long time. I heard of a 
sermon the other day in which the minister said they had 
not had one single conversion during the whole year. He is 
doing pretty well. 

I go to one of our merchants and say :. You are in the 
merchandise business are you? Yes. How are you getting 



170 THE LORD'S PEAYEK. 

along ? Pretty well. Do you have any customers ? Well, 
no, I do not think I have had a customer for about three 
weeks. Would you say that man was getting along pretty 
well in business ? How many converts have you received in 
the church ? How many have you been instrumental in 
saving? I don't know. Two or three or four or five or six 
or seven or eight or nine or ten. Do you call that getting 
along pretty well ? Really that would bankrupt any mer- 
chant. That would drive every tradesman into the poor 
house ; and that is called in the church, " Getting along 
very well." As I have said in a previous discourse, God gave 
me and my little girl more souls in one year than all the 
Northern Presbyterian Church, with its 5,643 ministers had 
gotten in the whole year. You see figures do not lie. They 
are there in their statistics. Not one convert to a minister. 

Ah, my friends, getting along pretty well. Good God, 
show this people what doing pretty well means. 

My friends, I want you to have a saint's forgiveness. I 
want you to walk in unclouded fellowship with the Father 
and with the Son. I do not suppose there are just quite as 
many first-class quarrels represented in this congregation, 
because you have been coming so regularly to this meeting. 
I venture to say that the most of you are saints ; but I will 
venture to say in this congregation there are a dozen first- 
class quarrels. Sister, are you at peace with everybody ? No 
that woman behaved so shamefully with me that I will not 
have anything to do with her. Go make peace with her 
sister. I cannot do it. She has injured me and I cannot 
do it. Yes, you can. That is the devil's own error. I can do 
all things when Christ strengthens me. Come up into this 
blessed plane. No difficulty at all. I know you cannot for- 
give your enemies or make friends with those you dislike 
while you are in the 7th of Romans ; but come where the 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 171 

Lord wants you to come, and he will give you this very pe- 
tition. Come into the place where you can do it, and I will 
promise you, for I have been there, even if I did not know 
it — by God's precious word. 

I remember a dear sister in Kentucky, when I was preach- 
ing on this very subject, she turned red and pale, and hung 
her head. I said, Good sister, you have something wrong in 
your heart. I do not know what it is. The very next 
morning — that was at night — I was living at the same house 
where she was, and I saw her put on her. bonnet with a frame 
around it, and strings to it. She put it on with such deter- 
mination that I knew she meant business. She walked out. 
She had about six first-class quarrels in town. In some she 
was in fault and in some the others were in fault, and she 
was determined to have them ended. She went to the first 
door, and when the woman came out, she said, " Sister, we 
have been out for a long time. Let us kiss and make friends 
and do not say who is wrong. The head went under her 
bonnet, and she went to another door, and another head went 
under the bonnet. She went to the next door, and in thirty 
minutes she had made up all of her quarrels ; and every 
one of those people came to church that night. Oh, what a 
glorious blessing. She was for the first time where she 
could say, My father, let me be crowned with the saint's 
forgiveness, for I also freely forgive all that are indebted to 
me. She put away that old sun-bonnet in lavender to hand 
down as an heir-loom to her children, for it was the turning 
point in her life. 

Ah, brethren, if you will only come to the place where 
Jesus wants you to come how easy it will be to make all 
these quarrels up. " Forgive us our trespasses as we for- 
give those who trespass against us." Ah, that is our great 
work, and the Lord lays special stress on that, because he 



173 THE lord's prayer. 

knows that the devil is always sowing dissensions. He 
makes bad marriages here. They say marriages are made 
in heaven. Yes, because the devil is in heaven. He lives 
in heavenly places ; but if there is one thing that the devil 
does it is to come down here and mis-ally people, and then 
he sows a tremendous crop of connubial quarrels — house- 
hold quarrels. When we shut the windows, and the blinds 
are shut close, and a kind roof covers us, people do not 
know what is going on inside, but the devil is going on. 
Whether brown stone front or log house, the devil is going 
on in all of them. It is very rare to find a sweet, loving 
household, where the members never fall out with each 
other. And because we are in the devil's work, and the 
devil's world, and the devil is all about us, and he has got 
his agents at our elbows continually, sowing disturbance 
between man and man, and woman and woman, and because 
quarreling and bickering and strife are the very atmosphere 
in which we are born and live. Jesus knew that the first 
necessity after getting everything right with God, and bring- 
ing God into the very smallest things in life, was getting 
right with our fellow man — that was absolutely the first nec- 
essity of this blessed, glorious, new higher life, and so he 
gave us that prayer to say ; " Forgive us our trespasses as 
we forgive those who trespass against us." Remember 
whatever you substitute for it — Bible reading day and night, 
going to church regularly, having a class in Sunday school, 
singing in the choir, doings all these demands, going through 
all these forms of religion — remember there is no fellowship 
with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, unless you 
can pray this fifth petition in the Lord's prayer, for that 
means fellowship with Him. Dear friends, the Lord will 
teach you that if you are only willing to learn it. Ah, may 
you learn it this afternoon. Let us learn the difference be- 
tween a sinner's and a saint's forgiveness. God bless you. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



" Lead us not into temptation." 



[St. James, Chapter I.] 

I hope we have all done with that dreary, dismal, desolate, 
soul-starving work of saying prayers ; and I trust we are 
beginning to learn now to pray, and to say the sixth petition 
of this dear Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." 
I want to tell you as best I can what the Lord has taught me 
on this subject. I think he has given me some light upon 
this sixth petition. I know enough at all events to lead my 
own soul out of a great muddle, and may be it will be help- 
ful to you. There are two ways of not getting into difficulty 
with regard to Scripture. One is the way of absolute ignor- 
ance. If you do not know what the Lord says, of course 
you will avoid all perplexity, and all difficulty of understand- 
ing His Word, but I would rather not avoid this perplexity. 
I would not sit beside this well of truth and not know what 
living waters were in it. I know some people that never 
get into a muddle because they never study the Word enough 
for that ; never read it enough to see where there are ap- 
parent discrepancies, or apparent contradictions. That is 
not the ease and rest to be desired. 1 want to know God's 
word from beginning to end, not being wise above what is 
written, but being wise up to what is written, and under- 
standing God's ways and methods, so that things which, to 
the mere sight, seem to cross each other are really the 



174 THE lord's prayer. 

most beautifully, appropriate and parallel things that you 
can find in the world. Now I remember the time when I 
was in an awful state of bewilderment about this very thing 
of temptation, but it is all as clear as daylight to me now ; 
and I can state the difficulty in a few words. It is this : 
In God's word we find many passages like those contained 
in the First Chapter of James ; parallel passages to that in 
which we find that it is a very blessed thing to be tempted. 
We are to count it all joy. That is the very highest joy you 
can have, when you fall into — not one or two — but divers 
temptations. Count it all joy. Why ? That kind of tempta- 
tion worketh patience ; but " let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." 
Now, Brethren, count it all joy. I have learnt to count this 
temptation all joy, and I will tell you why directly. In the 
same chapter, the Lord says : " If a man is tempted, do not 
let him say he is tempted of the Lord, for a man is tempted 
by his own lusts, and enticed. Then when lust hath con- 
ceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, 
bringeth forth death." So, dear friends there is a thing 
that frowns upon us. Here I am required, in this very text, 
by my loyalty to Christ to pray to the Father continually 
not to lead me into temptations, and yet, in the very same 
breath I say, Lead me into temptation, because, dear friends, 
a thing that is good for me, I want the Lord to lead me into. 
They that are led by the Spirit of God are the real sons of 
God ; and when I find that Jesus was led up into the wilder- 
ness to be tempted of the devil, I know that was the very 
best thing for him ; and it is the very best thing for us all 
if we follow in his footsteps. He has set us an example that 
we should follow. For lack of seeing the things that God 
has made distinct, many a soul wears itself away, and cries 
and wrings its hands, when really it ought to be rejoicing ; 



the lord's prayer. 175 

and many a soul is not troubled at all when it ought to be 
mourning — ought to be weeping, just for the lack of seeing 
the Lord's hand, and being led by the blessed Spirit of God. 

Let me call your attention to the difference between a 
Christian and a Christian ; between a naughty child and a 
good child. The difference between being saved " so as by 
fire" and saved with an " abundant entrance ;" the differ- 
ence between having life and the crown of life ; the difference 
between having love, which we all possess in common who 
are his children, and perfect love, which is the exclusive 
property of that little flock. To have mere salvation, dear 
friends, is one thing, and to have the things that accompany 
salvation is another thing. To be born into the kingdom is 
one thing, and to hold the plow handle steadily to the end of 
the furrow, and so deserve the kingdom, is another thing. 
Everlasting life, which is the gift of God, is one blessed thing 
and a glorious thing, and the everlasting life which is the 
recompense, reward or wages of faithful service is a totally 
different thing. So let us go back to that simple thing 
that is illustrated all through the Scriptures ; the difference 
between a child and a good child, just as you have in your 
own family ; for you deal differently with your good and 
your bad child, and so does God. 

Let us go, dear friends, to the first class of passages that 
speak of the temptation into which we ought to pray the 
Lord to be led ; O Lord, lead on ; I follow. I count it all 
joy when I fall into these divers temptations, because I know 
thou art going to bring me out right, though it is a furnace 
seven times heated. I want the dross to come out, and the 
gold to come out as bright as a looking-glass, so that it will 
reflect the face of my God, who called me out of darkness 
into marvelous light. 



176 THE lord's prayer. 

Take this first chapter of James, " Count it all joy when 
you are led into divers temptations." Also, First Peter, 
first chapter and 6th verse, " Wherein ye greatly rejoice 
though now, for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness 
through manifold temptations." That is the divers temp- 
tations that James spoke about, and wherein we greatly re- 
joice. This is a parallel passage with this one quoted in 
James : " Though now, for a time, if need be, you are in 
heaviness through manifold temptations, knowing that the 
trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth." When we try gold we put it in the furnace 
in order to get it pure. " For the trial of your faith being 
much more precious than that of gold that perisheth may be 
found unto praise and honor and glory at the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." Now, you see, when Jesus comes you 
are to have a crown ; for you cannot have a crown unless 
you are tried. You cannot, my dear friends, have a reward 
unless you prove yourself as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 
The Lord Jesus cannot say, with truth, " Well done, thou 
good and faithful servant," unless you do well ; and so, 
dear friends, since doing well means fighting the good fight 
that produces enemies, and diabolical enemies, and plenty 
of them, that will attack you right and left, and lay siege to 
your integrity every day you live. So, if you want to fight 
the good fight of faith, you must have many and sundry 
marks as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. If you want the 
crown you must run the race ; and there are impediments 
and snares in the way. You must lay aside every weight, 
and the sin that doth so easily beset you, and run with 
patience the race set before you, looking unto Jesus, who 
has the glittering crown in his hand, and says : Courage, 
dear one ; run with a steady eye on me ; run with a light 
foot ; run disentangled. Gird up the loins of your mind. 



THE lord's prayer. 177 

Be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be 
brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Dear friends, if there was nothing to overcome I could 
not fight the good fight. If there was no impedimentae to be 
laid aside I could not run with patience the race that is set 
before me. So, remember this, dear friends, when the Lord 
leads us into temptation — as is written, " the Lord did 
tempt Abraham." He put him in a very close place, too. 
But Abram never could have stood it until he got an " H " 
in his name. When he started out with Abram the Lord 
would no more have put the trial of the 22d of Genesis on 
him than I would put a bag of grain on my child two years 
old. But, when Abraham became a strong, stalwart man of 
God, and able to bear a test, the Lord, to tempt and try him, 
said He, Abraham, take your son and kill him. All right, 
said he, I will kill him, and he just took him along, and 
would have killed him. He took him up to the top of a 
mountain, bound him to a litter, and lifted a sharp, glitter- 
ing knife, and was about to plunge it into his bosom. If he 
had known the Lord he would have known that the Lord 
would never let him do such a murderous deed. That is 
where poor Freeman failed. That is fanaticism. The devil 
has got a counterfeit bill. Freeman and his wife thought 
they were going right over the road that Abraham went. 
They thought they heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 
" Kill your child/' They laid the poor helpless little child 
down and killed it. The mother to go distracted as soon as 
she found out she had taken a life that could not be restored. 
Do you not know that the counterfeit, if it is dangerous, 
looks very like the true bill ? and you follow the life of such 
a man as Freeman, who was the prince of fanatics, and who 
killed his little daughter. Ah, my friends, it may not be so 
great a crime when the Lord comes. It was an awful mis- 



178 the lord's prayer. 

take. It was an awful blunder. It was a horrible devil's 
counterfeit of Abraham's faith. Remember that where 
there are counterfeits about there is a true bill. So, they 
followed Scripture, as they thought ; really following the 
devil with a Bible in his hand ; for I have told you that the 
devil with a Bible under his arm is the most diabolical devil 
that ever lived. So he goes to poor Freeman with a Bible 
under his arm, and leads him and his wife on and on till 
they sacrificed the darling of their lives. They did love their 
child, and they killed it. Oh, what a devil he is. If you 
are piously inclined he can tempt you on the pious line ; can 
bring up a pious dodge that will be more dangerous than the 
impious. I know so many holiness people that have been 
caught on the devil's hook. I know so many holiness people 
that are caught with holiness. I do not know people that 
are in a more dangerous position than they. If there is one 
bait on earth that is more dangerous than any other it is the 
holiness bait. I have had a good deal to do with holiness 
people in the last five years, and I have watched closely, and 
oh, the devil is in the camp. Do not think he respects any 
place. Wherever souls are to be won from their allegiance 
to God there Satan will spread his nets to ensnare the ig- 
norant and unwary. 

What did God do with Abraham ? He tried him sharply, 
for God who says thou shalt not kill, never tells you to kill. 
There is where poor Freeman made the mistake. Abraham 
would have gone on and on, and in another moment — He 
never ought to have counted that God was going to raise 
him from the dead. He ought to have counted that God 
was trying his faith, and that faith was to go to the utter- 
most ; but God never tries faith against his own command- 
ment ; and so if Abraham had been intelligent, he never 
would have thought that God was going to raise his child 



the lord's prayer. 179 

from the dead. He might have said that God is going to 
show me a way out of this. I am going right straight along 
till I run against a brick wall. If he had gone that way he 
would have had peace and rest. But he came actually to 
the point, and the Lord said, Hold, Abraham, don't you 
touch that child. Don't you lay your hand upon life ; but 
I see you are willing to go jast as far as I want you to go, 
and I will never try you again. That was the last trial of 
his life, the last thing that Abraham could do. " He 
counted all things as lost for the excellency of the Lord/' 
for he saw Christ and was called, and became the friend of 
God and the father of the faithful, and at a hundred and 
thirty-seven years of age he married a wife and had a large 
family of children. He counted it all joy when he fell into 
divers temptations for the trial of his faith. We ought to 
count it all joy. 

Take the dear, blessed Jesus himself. Listen to Mark, 
the first Chapter, iith verse. " And there came a voice 
from heaven" — after his baptism — not before, which is a 
sign of external cleansing, as the blood is a sign of external 
baptism. After his baptism, the Holy Ghost descended up- 
on him in power, and " a voice came from heaven, saying, 
Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased/' 
Then immediately the Spirit leadeth him up into the wilder- 
ness to be tempted of the devil ; and in three places in the 
Gospel it is said, then was Jesus led up into the wilderness 
to be tempted of the devil ; and after he was tried there, 
and he had foiled the devil — not like the first Adam, who 
in circumstances where he ought to have stood absolutely, 
fell at the instigation of the devil. But he, the dear Jesus, 
among wild beasts out in that wilderness, in circumstances 
fully adapted to try him to the uttermost extent, our second 
Adam gained the victory, and foiled the devil for you and 



180 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

me. But mark you, he was led up into the wilderness to be 
tempted of the devil, because he was able to bear it — full 
of the spirit. 

What I mean, dear friends, by exhorting you to count it 
all joy when you fall into divers temptations, is simply to 
know that it is a compliment to your advancing faith, advan- 
cing intelligence and advancing strength, for the Lord 
never lays a burden upon us which we are not able to bear. 
As Paul says in express words, " For God is righteous. He 
will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able," 
First Corinthians, 10th Chapter, but will, with the tempta- 
tion, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear 
it. There is the assertion that God never allows one of his 
children to be tempted above his strength ; but if you do 
not take the strength ; if you do not accept the grace that 
God gives, then the temptation will overpower you. So, if 
you are in the 7th of Romans, in the place God does not 
want you to be, temptation comes along. There is Jesus 
Christ with the ability to resist it, but you have not acquired 
that ability, and defeat is sure to follow. But if you are in 
the 8th of Romans instead of the 7th — in the place where 
the Lord wants you to be, temptation comes like a wave, 
dashing against the sea shore, and instead of bearing you 
down with irresistible iorce, it serves only to strengthen you 
and make you full of vigor. When I am bathing in the 
salt water I dislike to have a big breaker come and knock 
me off my legs ; it tries the temper too much. But when 
you stand prepared for the advancing wave it leaves you 
firm as a rock, you draw a long breath, and it fills you with 
new life. That is sea bathing ; not splashing with your 
head down under the water and your heels above it. So it 
makes all the difference in the world whether you stand or 



181 

not. I want you to have access by faith to this faith where- 
in you stand and do not fall. 

Remember these are all higher life prayers. Oh, Lord, 
lead us not into temptation, but w r e will come to that after 
a while. So, friends, just to gather in a nut shell what I have 
been talking about, perhaps in a desultory way, it comes 
simply to this, that when the Lord puts us into places where 
we are sharply tempted with ability to bear it, we count it 
all joy, because it will help us on. We count it as a com- 
pliment too, j ust as a knight in the olden times. When a man 
was to be knighted for gallant deeds, knighted because he 
was a strong man, knighted because he w r as brave 
and gallant, and had won the golden spurs ; when his 
sovereign came he took his great heavy broadsword out of 
the sheath, and swung it over his head, and it came down 
heavy and sharp on the back of the man, with a blow that 
would have made any man with delicate nerves flinch ; but 
he had nerves of iron. He came there to be struck on the 
shoulders that way. And so when his sovereign says, " Rise 
to your feet," was his back aching? Not a bit of it ; that 
stroke on the back was the most complimentary thing he 
ever had. He counted it joy to be tried ; but a milksop 
would have cried, that is awful ; just like Christians in the 
7th of Romans ; u Oh, my burden is so heavy. Was ever a 
poor soul tried as I am ?" I have been there. I have done 
it a hundred times. I have got out of it now, thank God. 

Dear friends, count it all joy to bear hardness as a good 
soldier of Jesus Christ. Learn to cultivate that athletic faith 
of soul that rejoices in divers temptations, knowing that the 
trial of faith worketh patience ; let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 
Ah, what a compliment it is to be a brave soldier to be 
sent on a forlorn hope. A man of true courage rejoices in 



182 THE lord's prayer. 

it. A novice does not wish to be called ; and we would 
never call for one to occupy the post of danger. In the old 
days of the rebellion down there in that Southern army, 
when they had to take a difficult position, they said, " Send 
for Jackson with the Stone-wall Brigade." That meant 
victory or death ; and he always took it. I am not speak- 
ing as a partisan. I just adduce this as an incident to il- 
lustrate what I say. There is not a man here that is not 
stirred by courage like that, even though it is a foe. The 
compliment was to a man that never turned his back on a foe. 
The compliment was to a man that was bound to carry the 
thing through whenever he was sent to do it, and he always 
did. Do you not see that was a compliment to a tried and 
trusted soldier ? That is exactly what the Lord means when 
he says, " Learn to endure hardness as a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ. ,, It makes my pulse stir when I hear of such a 
man — all man ; and so, my friends, it sends a thrill of joy 
through heaven when one is bold in the Lord, and strong in 
the power of his might ; who is always ready to stand up in 
front, never skulks, is never afraid of any service of the 
Lord. That is the temptation that we ought to be led into. 
Oh, Lord, try me as you see I am able to stand it, remem- 
bering your own sweet promise that you will not let me be 
tempted above what I am able to bear. I take that sweet 
promise. I do not care for rest. " Where he leads I will 
follow, I will follow all the way." A man that will volun- 
tarily assume such a position the Lord will never tempt 
him above what he is able, but try him fully up to what he 
is able to bear ; and every day will be a victory. He will 
tread the field as a conscious victor every day. 

The reason why there are so few that rejoice when they 
fall into temptations is that there are so few that are worthy 
to fall into them ; so few that God can trust to bring in 



the lord's prayer. 183 

front ; so few that God can send on a forlorn hope. Chris- 
tians in the 7th of Romans need not be afraid. The Lord 
is not going to send them on such duty as that. You will 
find all through the Scriptures that if we exercise true love 
to God and a wholesome regard to his word, we shall be led 
in the way that is safest and best. 

Let us take those facts that illustrate the second point : 
"Lead me not into temptation." Let us go to the 22d 
chapter of Luke to hear the Lord as he speaks to Peter. 
Peter, Peter, Satan hath desired thee, that he may sift thee 
as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. 
Said he, I cannot keep you out of the temptation. You are 
bound to be tried ; and I know what is coming. You will 
curse, and swear, and deny me before the cock crows ; and 
I will- tell you what, Peter, I will do for you. What I can- 
not do for Judas. I will pray for you that your faith fail 
not. And Peter was recovered out of the snare of the 
devil. He fell into it before he was recovered out of it. 
Peter cursed and swore, and said he did not know Jesus 
Christ ; did not know anything about him. Think of this, 
coming from the man who had said, " Thou art Christ, the 
Son of the living God." 

Ah, brother, when you are led into temptation in that way 
you are bound to be defeated. Jesus may pray for you that 
your faith fail not ; so you will not go off and hang yourself 
as Judas did. Peter would have gone and put a rope 
around his neck in ten minutes if Jesus had not prayed for 
him. The very sound of his own voice cursing and swear- 
ing would have driven that loving, impetuous soul to com- 
mit suicide. It was this one prayer of Jesus that his faith 
might not fail in this temptation that saved him. His faith 
did not fail. If it had he would have hung himself. Lead 
me not into temptation. We will come to the meaning of 



184 THE lord's prayer. 

that after a while. Let me give you some more illustra- 
tions. 

After that, in the 22d of Luke, Jesus said, Pray that ye 
enter not into temptation. Oh, pray that you enter not into 
temptation. The spirit, indeed, is willing. So it is in the 
7th of Romans, but the flesh is weak. I pray that you may 
never be tempted, or enter into temptation, or be led into 
temptation, until you have the assurance that you have a 
grace that will carry you safely through. That is the mean- 
ing of that : Pray that you enter not into temptation. The 
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. To will is present 
with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. 
The things that I would, I do not ; the things that I would 
not, those I do. I love the Lord. There is the spirit will- 
ing. I see another law in my members warring against the 
Jaw in my mind. That is the flesh that is weak. Oh, 
brothers, pray that you may never be led into temptation in 
that condition ; but pray that you may be led into tempta- 
tion in the right condition — pray that you may be led — So 
lead on, I will follow. If you are in the right condition ; if 
you are in the higher life — and, remember, all these peti- 
tions are higher life petitions, all are put into the mouths of 
those that are saints. That you may be good saints come up 
into the higher place — and then say : Lead me not into 
temptation, but deliver me from evil.* Oh, dearest Lord, 
do not let me ever get into places where I will be tempted 
and not have strength to bear it. Let me not be defeated 

* These two petitions are to be taken as if they were one : Lead us 
not * * but deliver us * * That is, let us not be tried when we 
are not able to bear it. Thus, in Romans, 6, 17, "God be thanked 
that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed." That is, though 
ye were once sinners, ye are so no longer, — Ed. 



THE lobd's pkayek. 185 

in my trials, and let not Satan have any advantage over me 
in them. 

Let us take another illustration in this 7th of Romans de- 
partment. There was a man in sin in the Corinthian 
Church. Now, says Paul, as though present with you, I 
being absent in the body, but present with you in the spirit, 
command you that you deliver over such an one to Satan. 
What for ? To go to hell ? No. There is no thought of 
hell, because he was afterwards restored, and in the very 
next epistle Paul said, Do not be hard on such an one, lest 
he be overborne with too much sorrow. But in the first 
epistle he said, Deliver such an one over unto Satan. What 
for ? For destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be 
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. He was not delivered 
over to Satan to be his. No, by no means. He was a child 
of God, and a child of God cannot be a child of Satan. It 
is an impossibility. It was for the destruction of the flesh 
that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 
that men were excommunicated in the time of the Apostles. 
Paul writes, Take him back, and take him back quick. 
Here he is in an awful condition ; he is a bruised reed. 
The power of the devil is intended to be so used as to cure, 
not to kill. So they did take him back, and he turned out 
to be a good Christian. Paul writes about several loose 
characters, among whom are Hymenasus and Alexander, 
whom I have delivered over to Satan. To take them to 
hell } No, to make them better ; that they may learn not 
to blaspheme. Delivered to the devil and put under his 
hand, and then they are taken back. But they have learned 
over the rough road. Better that than not to learn the 
lesson at all. 

Take the case of Job. One day the devil came in con- 
ference with the sons of God ; and the Lord said, Have you 



186 THE lord's prayer. 

seen my servant Job ? Yes, I have studied Job. That is 
the very man. He is in possession of some of my property. 
I have been walking up and down my kingdom. I can 
make him curse you to your face. Well, said the Lord, 
that is a fact. Take him, Satan. I cannot help him. And 
Satan went at it. He came back a second time and said, 
He has still some of my property. Says the Lord, Take it, 
devil. And he hackled him and hackled him till he got the 
devilment out of him. As soon as the devil's property was 
taken out of him, the devil was driven away from him ; and 
the Lord gave him double his property, and double the 
number of children. The Lord would not allow Job to 
lose anything by it. He had seven in heaven and seven on 
earth. That was a great deal better than having fourteen 
on earth. He doubled his prosperity. No daughters so 
fair as the daughters of Job. Gallant sons grew up by his 
side; and there he lived to a good old age, dandling them on 
his knees. The devil made a clean sweep that time, and 
never laid his dirty hand on Job after that. 

Do you suppose God lets the devil play with one of his 
children just for play's sake ? You seat the devil that kill- 
eth, in the First of Job, on the throne, and you will have 
the God Ingersoll has such power to make you young men 
disbelieve in. The letter that killeth — that is Ingersoll's 
God. That is the God your children are revolting from. 
You need not say they do not. They do not believe in that 
God. They will not tell you so for ten thousand worlds. 
Mothers do not know what their children believe in. Do 
you suppose they would come and tell you they believed in 
Ingersoll ? But they do all the same. I tell you the rising 
generation of America are infidels, and made infidels by 
Col. Ingersoll. Why? Because he has got the best of the 
argument, and your bright, ingenious well educated boys 



THE lokd's pkayek. 187 

know what an argument is ; and they say Ingersoll has got 
the inside track, and beats his adversaries, at every turn. 
The theologians flounder along ; the wheels of their chariots 
driving heavily, trying to defend an indefensible God ; try- 
ing to make out the devil, who sits on God's throne, to be 
the Good God. You will have to make out a different 
definition, or you will be beaten in every conflict. If you 
believe that God has compounded with the devil ; that the 
devil has persuaded him on the naked merits of the 
case to hand over his very best servant, and make him 
lose all his children and all his property, to have his body 
covered with sores, so that he is just rotten from head to 
foot ; if you believe God does that, then we part company 
to-day. I do not believe in such a God as that, any more 
than Colonel Ingersoll does. I believe in God and the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and he says if a man 
walks uprightly diseases shall not smite him. I have got the 
promise of God as to that. The devil cannot afflict us when 
our lives are all right. 

If the devil ever gets a chance at me in my latter life, do not 
you listen to the insane ravings of my soul, for the devil 
may get me so low down that I will deny everything I say 
to-day. But now I have got a sound mind in a sound body, 
and am at peace with all mankind ; but if anything of that 
kind happens I want you to believe it is my fault and the 
devil's fault ; and here I exonerate the Good God in ad- 
vance. Whatever in the ravings of pain and terror I may 
say, oh, take the evidence of a man in his senses, a man who 
is not under pressure. I am not under pressure now. If 
anything goes wrong, it is my fault ; just as Job, Vhen he 
found out what the truth was, said. "I am vile." Stand, 
not another step, Oh, Lord; I have heard of you, and heard 
a miserable mess about you ; you are not the God I was 



188 THE lord's prayer. 

talking about when I was stung to desperation ; but you are 
the dear, blessed God. My eye seeth thee. And as soon 
as the Lord has justified and not condemned, right there 
the captivity ended. Job was all right. 

That is the teaching, " Lead me not into temptation." 
Job was hackled because he had the devil's property in him, 
else the devil would never dare to lay his finger on him. I 
want you to remember this God with all his almightiness 
is helpless to defend his children when they are on the 
devil's ground. But never forget, it is from Genesis to 
Revelation the teachings of God's word, if you get on the 
devil's ground he has a right to hackle you. Job got on the 
devil's ground and he hackled him. Hymenaeus and Alex- 
ander got on the devil's ground, and the devil taught them 
not to blaspheme. The devil had this other man ; to destroy 
his flesh that his spirit might be saved. No, for that had 
been purchased by the Lord Jesus on the cross, and the 
devil cannot touch that ; but he can destroy the flesh. Our 
graveyards are full of flesh destroyed by the devil. Let us 
exonerate God at all risks. At all risks let God be true 
and every man a liar. 

Now, dear friends, I trust you see what the meaning of 
lead me not into temptation is. O Lord, may I not remain 
in the 7th of Romans. Oh, Lord, may I not remain in that 
place in the Christian life where the devil will have a chance 
to hackle me for my misdeeds. Oh, Lord, dearest Lord, I 
come up now into that life where he that is born of God 
doth not commit sin ; where he w T alks worthy of his Father 
unto all pleasing ; where he adorns the doctrines of God 
his Savicfr in all things. Oh, Lord, I will not remain in the 
7th of Romans, where the devil can get at me ; in a place 
where I will be tempted above what I can bear, but gladly, 
joyfully I will rise into that region where that wicked one 



189 

toucheth me not ; for the cognate prayer is " Lead me not 
into temptation, but deliver me from evil ; " and on those 
two wings I rise into an atmosphere too high for the devil 
to fly in ; an atmosphere too refined for the devil to breathe 
in. If you stay down in the gross place where he can get his 
breath, and have an easy time, he has got a chance to hackle 
you ; but get out of his reach. The devil cannot breathe 
that atmosphere any more than a human being can breathe 
five miles from the surface of the earth — any more than a 
human being can breathe in heaven. He cannot, he is not a 
heavenly man. When I become heavenly that will be my 
natural breath ; but take me now and put me in heaven, and 
I will gasp and die. And so the devil, when you get up into 
the purer air, will suffocate himself every time he tries to get 
up there. But as long as you stay down in the gross atmos- 
phere, where he lives, he is just as strong as can be, and 
there he will make his power felt. 

That is all that the Lord has taught me, dear friends, about 
" Lead me not into temptation." 

To recapitulate : Remember the two positions ; the high- 
er life and the lower life ; a Christian barely saved in sin, 
and a Christian saved from sin. For thou shalt call his 
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. 
Remember that is quitting the whole thing, and then the 
prayer is this : Lord, the temptations that thou givest me 
give me the strength to bear, so that I can endure hardness 
like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Lead on, Lord, lead me 
into the wilderness if I am only filled with the spirit of 
Jesus Christ. Yes, Lord, fill me with the spirit, but do not 
let me go there until I am filled. If Thy presence go not 
with us, carry us not. What good is the promised land if 
God is not with us. Take us not hence, for it will only be 
to be borne down by sins. 



190 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

Oh, Lord, do not let me remain in such a position where 
I will be led into temptation I have not the strength to bear; 
but otherwise I will count it all joy to be led by Thy hand 
into divers temptations — anything you think I can endure ; 
sickness, persecution, suffering for righteousness* sake. In 
the lower life we are hackled by the devil for wickedness' 
sake. The devil finds some of his property loose around us, 
and hackles us till he gets it out. In the other case are we 
hackled by the devil ? Yes, but that wicked one touches us 
not. He cannot touch the free spirit, nor life, for I am 
hackled for righteousness' sake. In the one case I am hack- 
led because I am bad, and in the other case I am hackled 
because I am good. I like to bear the scars of honorable 
battle, but do not like to be wounded in the back running 
away. I love to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ ; and those scars are the scars of honorable warfare. 
That dinted armor I shall lay down one of these days, with 
never a dint in the back, for there is no armor for the back. 
I shall lay it down one day, and God will lay it away ; and 
He will say, Come in, oh soldier, thou shalt have rest. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



"Deliver us from the Evil One." 

The seventh petition in the Lord's Prayer reads, "Deliver 
us from the evil one." I am glad our new version has given 
the proper rendering of it : "Deliver us from the evil one." 
There is no telling what mischief that little false rendering 
has done. Beyond a doubt the devil is at the bottom of it, 
and I do not know anything in its way that has contributed 
more to false ideas in the church and in the world regarding 
the devil than that one little word left out — " Deliver us 
from evil," not from "the evil one." That is as vague and 
as general as the devil wants it to be — "Deliver us from 
evil " — of malaria in the atmosphere, miasma, something of 
that kind, an influence that is floating about ; something in- 
tangible ; something that you cannot lay hold of. It means 
nothing. It does not lay hold of the heart at all. It does 
not alarm one — " Deliver us from evil." A vague generality 
like that never lays hold of the heart, my friends. I want 
to talk to you about the devil. Not a devil in the abstract. 
I want to talk to you about a concrete devil. I want to 
talk to you about evil collected in an evil one, just as God 
is goodness collected in a good one. As for God, he is 
good. As for the devil, he is evil. Mark you, that his evil 
name, even, in the English language, teaches us a lesson. 
Take away the D, as one has remarked, from it, and you 
have got evil ; take away the E, and you have got vile ; take 
away the V, and you have got ill ; take away the I, and 



192 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

leave but one little letter standing alone, and it sounds like 
hell itself. You have got the quintessence of everything 
that is vile and abominable just in that word, devil. God 
meant it to be so, for the devil is the author of all evil. 
He is at the bottom of all mischief. It is not evil in the 
abstract that I want to be delivered from. I want to be de- 
livered from the devil. " Deliver us from the evil one." 
Oh, how much mischief that false translation has done. 
Thank God, it has been remedied in the new version. And 
just a few glances at the Scripture, my dear friends, will 
convince you that that can be the only meaning of it. 
Now, you take a passage in the 17th of John, where Jesus 
prays that his disciples may not be taken out of the world, 
but kept from the evil one. That is in reality just the same 
word. Then you remember that in the 13th chapter of 
Matthew the tares are described as children of the wicked 
one. That is exactly the same word that is in the seventh 
petition of the Lord's Prayer. The children of the wicked 
one. There, for some reason, it is translated just as it ought 
to be. Then, in this petition of the Lord's Prayer it is not 
translated as it ought to be. It is the same word, I assure 
you ; any Greek scholar can tell you that. Then in John's 
Epistle you will find there again : " He is of that wicked 
one." Exactly the same word. But there is no use of 
multiplying the truth. I do not suppose there is a scholar 
in the world that will deny that the proper translation of 
ho pon'eros is a person ; that is exactly what the devil does 
not want you to believe in — a living personality. The 
devil, who is going about seeking whom he may devour ; the 
devil, with all his infernal foresight, all his infernal power, 
all his infernal malice, with all his infernal perseverance ; 
the devil, who is never satisfied with the mischief he does, 
but whose appetite is only whetted to go and do more ; the 



THE lord's prayer, 193 

devil, who is at the basis of all the wretchedness, who is at 
the bottom of all the mischief in this world ; who is at the 
bottom of every groan that is uttered, every tear that is 
shed, every cry that goes up to the heaven of heavens, does 
not want us to know he is a person. Ah, my friends, that 
is why Jesus closes this Lord's Prayer by bidding us say, 
" Deliver us from the evil one." 

I do not wish to make Scripture, but just simply to quote 
it ; to tell you as much as I can in the brief space allotted 
for this discourse about the devil ; for, dear friends, it is of 
infinite importance, next to knowing the being of God, and 
the attributes of God, and the love of God, that we should 
know the existence, and the personality, and the diabolical 
malice of the devil. Next to knowing God, we ought to 
know the devil, for he is the " prince of the power of the 
air." He is the spirit that now worketh in the children of 
disobedience. He is the king of trouble ; the ruler over a 
kingdom that sets itself up against the kingdom of God. 
Oh, dear friends, Satan sets his camp up right beside the 
gates of the kingdom of the living God. I know the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against the gates of our blessed 
kingdom ; that is all very true ; and before I go any further 
let me say, I believe with all my heart and soul in that old 
Welsh proverb, that " God is atop of the devil." God is 
the king, the sovereign, and light is bound to triumph over 
darkness ; and I know that the triumph of Satan is very 
short lived. Ah, brethren, I shall soon stand upon the 
imperial heights and shout, " Hallelujah," when I see the 
smoke of his torment ascending up forever. I know that 
the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of 
our God and of his Christ ; but it is not so now ; and so I 
want to talk to you about the power, and personality, and 



194 THE lord's pkayer. 

existence of this awful devil, that Jesus tells us to pray 
that we may be delivered from. 

" Lead us not into temptation." You see the prayers are 
cognate prayers — " Lead us not into temptation," and 
" Deliver us from the evil one," for he is the author of 
temptation to evil. Remember, he began it, and he ends it. 
It was from the evil one, inasmuch as he is the head and 
front of all the temptation to evil that is in the world. 

Now, my friends, if I were to ask you what you think of the 
devil, let me see if I cannot exactly trace your course, unless 
you know what the Lord has given me to know. Suppose I 
were to ask you, brother, sister, what do you think of the 
devil, I will tell you what you would say, unless you know 
beforehand what I am going to say. You would say, "the 
devil is a fallen child. He is the prince of those angels who 
kept not their first estate. He was once an angel of light, 
and through pride he fell from that condition. Then there 
was a conflict in heaven. Michael and his angels cast out 
the devil and his angels. The devil was cast down to hell, 
for he is the prince of hell, where he is reserved in torment; 
but in some way or other he seems to have access to this 
earth, hence he is represented as going up and down — walk- 
ing to and fro in it." I say how did that ever happen, that 
the devil should be cast into hell, and yet should have un- 
restrained liberty to walk about the earth. The fact is, the 
popular descriptions of the devil are false and therefore un- 
scriptural. You will ask me where have all the common 
notions concerning the devil come from. I can tell you. 
It is from a popular misunderstanding of God's word and 
the unauthorized fancies of men in the dark ages. Men 
think they have found them in the Bible. I have been 
taught them from childhood. They were held by my parents 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 195 

and by the religious community in general. They have been 
held in past ages, we know not how long. 

You will find our popular ideas of Satan in Paradise Lost: 
but that is of no consequence. They are not true because 
a great man has adopted them. Milton was not a great in- 
vestigator, nor was he at all willing to be taught, especially 
by the scholars of the Church of England, who stood at the 
head of the world in their day in all matters of sound learn- 
ing. True he was a great and good man ; lies are not to be 
believed, though a very good man may tell them. Job was 
a good man, and he told many lies before he got through his 
argument. That is one of the snares of the devil, to tell lies 
through good people ; because a lie that comes from a holy 
life is current from the very start. A lie has some little 
trouble to get an impetus unless it comes from su£h unsus- 
pected source ; and if it does, man, saint and devil agree to 
let it go unquestioned. 

It is a serious mistake to confound the devil and his angels 
with the angels that kept not their first estate, which is not 
only a lie^ but an absurdity right on the face of it, for God 
expressly says by the mouth of Peter and of Jude, that the 
angels that kept not their first estate are cast down to Tar- 
turus ; a word that signifies either a close place or " the 
outer darkness." In astronomy it is the almost starless 
depths of the Southern pole (Virg. Georg., i. 243), but in 
Lucian it is the space outside the created universe where 
divine love expelled from the world of life all that is hurtful 
and pernicious and fixed them there with those doors of iron 
and threshold of brass of which Homer speaks ; while in 
Homer it seems a deep place of the earth itself ; the lowest 
region in Hades, where the dead gather after leaving the face 
of the earth. The angels that sinned are held in this place 
against the judgment, but to confound these closely confined 



196 THE lord's prayer. 

fallen ones with an order of beings who have unlimited ac- 
cess to the earth is a grievous mistake. The devil is going 
up and down, to and fro, claiming an absolute ownership of 
the whole establishment ; and this Christ does not deny 
(Luke 4, 6) ; for he knows that his dignity, as guardian to 
man and the world, was conferred upon him by God himself 
before he had sinned. The kingdoms of this world belong 
to him. God acknowledged it in that he has given us the 
sweet promise that the kingdoms of this world shall become 
the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. They are not 
now. We should not confound those two orders of beings, 
one in absolutely close confinement and the other as un- 
fettered as birds upon the wing, and of whom and concern- 
ing whom God never says they are bound for one instant. 
God never says they are one single instant in any particular 
place until the great angel comes down from heaven and 
lays hold of that serpent ; that old dragon, the Devil, Satan, 
and binds him and casts him into the abyss or bottomless 
pit, or deep, as it is translated in the Scripture ; and there 
he is kept in confinement for the first time of which we know 
anything, for one thousand years ; then, afterwards, released 
for a little while, he leads anapostacy such as the world has 
never seen, and which is destroyed by fire coming down from 
heaven, and the devil is taken and cast into the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone, and the smoke of his tor- 
ment shall ascend up forever and forever. There the 
Scripture loses him. There we lose him. 

I bid you in the outset, my friends, not to confound the 
devil and his angels with the angels that kept not their first 
estate. I have a theory, I think, from the word of God, 
which it is not proper to speak about in this connection. 
The angels that are bound are not the devil and his angels. 
If you believe they are you believe the greatest absurdity 



197 

that the mind of man can conceive. I warn you against 
Milton. I warn you against the delusion of believing that 
the devil can be bound in everlasting chains unto judgment 
of the great day and be as free as a bird on the wing at the 
same time. I will not believe in such a devil's folly as that 
— not if I have the dear Lord to tell me something better ; 
and so, now, having put you on your guard and pointing you 
out the mischief that has been done by this false translation, 
" Deliver us from evil," being put in the place of " Deliver 
us from the evil one," let me say that the blessed Jesus well 
knows who the devil is. He puts us on our guard himself. 
He beseeches us to pray to our Father continually to be de- 
livered from the evil one. 

Now, my friends, do you ask me where the devil comes 
from ? I do not know. Is he a creature of God ? I do 
not know, and I have no desire to commit myself beyond 
the Scriptures. There are those who believe in the eternal 
principle of good and evil. They see the tremendous power, 
the fearful resistance of the personal devil ; see how he at 
times seems to be able to conquer God, and that is the sim- 
ple fact. The devil and a sinner can conquer God in every 
instance. Remember this, whenever a soul is lost, that soul 
and the devil combined have beaten God ; have conquered 
Him ; thwarted his purpose ; gone right across his divine 
plan ; robbed him of the joy that he wishes to give. Ah, 
brother, that is the meaning of the tears of Jesus ; remem- 
ber that. 

Then God and I can beat the devil in every instance ; 
can beat him three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. 
Ah, I have had my time with the devil beating God. I 
have done it ten thousand times. For the rest of my life I 
am on God's side, my friends ; and you do not know what 
a delicious pleasure it is to beat the devil ? He needs me 



198 the lord's prayer. 

just as much as I need Him. He cannot beat the devil 
without me. With a willing soul he can beat the devil every 
time. With an unwilling soul the devil can beat him. 
Every soul that is lost, is lost because it chooses to be lost ; 
because it willingly goes to the devil. This is no imputation 
against his almightiness. I believe in the omnipotence of 
God more thoroughly than those who have a theological 
omnipotence, which yet is not scriptural. No one in the 
world believes more thoroughly than I do in the omnipo- 
tence of God ; but I take facts as God has given them in 
his blessed Word ; and I see that the soul and the devil to- 
gether can beat God ; can disable him, can turn aside his 
purpose ; can thwart his will. 

If you ask me who is the devil, I cannot tell you. 
Where did he come from ? I cannot tell you. Is he a 
creature of God ? I cannot tell you. Was he once an 
angel ? I cannot tell you. Scripture is silent on these 
points, and where Scripture is silent I refuse to speak on 
this subject. All I know about the devil is that God 
created the heavens and the earth. As for God, the Bible 
says His work is good. In the beginning we find the earth 
without form, and void ; and God expressly said in the 45th 
Chapter of Isaiah, that he did not create the earth void or 
in vain {tohu, see, also, Isa. 49, 4). The inference is that 
the devil did ; and I take that inference for granted until I 
can prove it. Take it for granted just for a moment till I 
prove it ; take it for granted that the devil came in and 
made it Tohu Va Bohu — that is without form and void. 
God expressly saying I did not make it that way. So he 
says in the 45th Chapter of Isaiah. Then the next thing 
you have is the 3d Chapter of Genesis, where the devil 
springs full armed, full grown upon the scene, like Minerva 
from the brain of Jupiter, and turns God's fair creation up- 



THE lord's prayer. 199 

side down. I have elswhere shown that the devil came by 
invitation ; for even the devil cannot come except he is in- 
vited in. I have shown you elsewhere that Adam invited 
him by failing to receive the sweet grace of God. Be that 
as it may, the devil comes in, and this fair scene of sweet- 
ness and order he turns into disorder and confusion and 
sin. He is the immediate cause of the man and woman be- 
ing put out of that garden ; driven out as fugitives ; and so 
this world has been a fugitive world ever since ; shut out 
from paradise. There is none such here except as the heart 
makes a heaven for itself by receiving the Son of God. 
Given Jesus with me and I will turn hell into heaven. 
Given Jesus w r ith me and I will turn a prison into a palace. 
Give Jesus to me and I can turn mourning into joy. But 
save that, where Jesus comes into the human soul, this 
world is given over to the devil. It belongs to him. He is 
the king of it. He sits upon his dark throne, and reigns 
there to-day ; but though he is king and the god of this 
world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of 
disobedience, yet mark you, this, after all, is not his throne. 
This is not his proper place. Satan's place is in the 
heavenly world ; i. e. y in the heights of spiritual power, he is 
king of the earth, hierarchies of religious pretenders are his 
setting. He never will be in hell until he is cast down into 
the bottomless pit ; and then after a little interval is cast 
into the lake of fire. There is not one single test to prove 
that the devil is anywhere else except in heavenly places, 
He has never been anywhere else ; he is there to-day, and he 
will be there until Michael and his angels cast him out of 
heaven. To substantiate this assertion, take the book of 
Job : " There came a day when the sons of God came be- 
fore Jehovah, and Satan came also among them." Now 
my friends, we have no right to prove that God held coun- 



200 the lord's prayer. 

cil in hell, and called all the holy angels down there just for 
the devil's accommodation, to consult with the devil as to 
how he could further his work. I know, my friends, the 
devil came just where he had a right to come. He came 
with the holy angels, the sons of God, and God there en- 
ters into familiar conversation with the devil ; says to him : 
Where have you been ? Walking up and down the earth. 
There are only three places that I know of in the Bible, 
heaven, earth and hell. He was not on earth, because he 
tells God he had been in the earth walking up and down — 
walking to and fro, up and down in it. When he speaks 
about that, he is in heaven, unless you agree to do violence 
to a passage in Scripture, and say God held conference in 
hell for the devil's accommodation. You do not believe he 
dragged the sons of God down and held conference in hell. 
No, my friends, the conference was held in heaven. Where 
have you been ? says God. I have been up and down the 
earth, walking to and fro. Have you seen my servant 
Job ? Yes. What are you going to do about it ? I am 
going to hackle him. He has got some of my property. 
Take him. That is the plain English of Job. The first 
time he destroys his children, and then takes away all his 
property ; and at the last interview covers him with sore 
boils from head to foot. That is the devil according to the 
Bible ; the devil with power second to God only ; one who 
appears to have a right to come into the conference where 
the sons of God come before Jehovah. Turn again to the 
22d Chapter of ist Kings. Micaiah said, " I saw Jehovah 
sitting on his throne." You know he was not one of the 
lying prophets. He was the only one that told the truth 
that day. He told Ahab the truth, and he was put into 
prison, and had to eat bread and water. The king believed 
the lying ones, went up to Ramoth Gilead, and lost his life. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 201 

Micaiah says : " I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and 
the hosts of heaven to the right of him and to the left of 
him." My friends, mark the position. Right and left — 
The sheep on the right and the goats on the left. When it 
comes to the judgment scene, mark the significancy — right, 
left all through the scripture ; the right the place of bless- 
ing. Then, dear friends, knowing what we already do 
about the devil, we can find out there were holy hosts and 
unholy hosts. The unholy on the left, and the holy hosts 
on the right. " And the Lord said, who shall pursuade 
Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead, and 
lose his life." The first day of grace was gone. God had 
turned to him tenderly, and in love, until now there was 
nothing more to save in Ahab ; and said He, What is going 
to be done about it ? One said this, and another that. 
And then said one of his spirits : " I will be a lying spirit in 
the mouth of Ahab's prophets." My friends, do you be- 
lieve God's holy angels can become lying spirits in the 
mouth of anybody ? Did you ever hear of a holy child of 
God speaking a lie. See, now, my friends, the horns of the 
dilemma on which you are likely to be impaled. If you say 
they are holy angels, you have got holy angels concocting 
an infernal plot to tell a lie to a poor sinner and send him 
to hell. That is exactly the god that Robert Ingersoll is 
mangling, and I do not blame him. I tell you if there were 
no other god than he I would join hands with Ingersoll this 
minute. Ah, friends, if he would only take God, the Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, he would be a benefactor of the race. 
It is all very plain on that acknowledgement and what 
the Bible teaches elsewhere, and in every place, that the 
devil is in heaven. When God cannot save a man, as he 
could not save Ahab ; and there is no hope for him, then 
the evil spirit says, " He is mine. He is my property. I 



202 THE lord's prayer. 

will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets," 
and that is exactly what he did ; and God said unto him, 
Go, just as he said to the devil, Go and afflict him with boils. 
Just as he said to the devil Go and kill his children. 

The devil is in heavenly places. It is all very plain and 
simple. Now, you take the 3d Chapter of Zechariah. 
Again, you have the dramatis personae all before you. 
There is Jehovah sitting on the throne ; the angel of the 
covenant in front. There is Satan, the adversary, standing 
to resist Joshua, the high priest, in holy places before the 
Lord ; mark you- that ; and the devil says, Give me this man. 
What is the matter? What do you touch him for ? He has 
got on dirty clothes. I want all the dirty clothes in the 
world ; and the angel of the covenant says, lay your hands 
off of him. He is a brand plucked out of the burning. He 
has put his case in my hands. There he is, saved by grace. 
He gets new clean garments on. And, mark you, the dra- 
matis personae are the holy advocate, resisting the devil, 
and the adversary on the other hand, and Joshua with dirty 
garments on, and the devil is claiming Joshua as he once 
claimed Job. If Job had put his case in the Lord's hands 
as Joshua did, he would have escaped the power of the 
devil, but he took to religious duties. That is what he got 
for hearing with the ear. When he said, " Now mine eye 
seeth thee, and I see that it is all different from what I be- 
lieved in — you are good and I am vile," then the power of 
Satan was broken. 

Now, turn to the 2d Samuel and see the history of Saul. 
Four times it is said trie Spirit of the Lord departed from 
him, and the evil spirit from the Lord entered into him. He 
could only enter from one place, far the evil spirits are only 
in one place ; they are right there in the presence of the 
Lord. These hosts of heaven are right and left. The 



THE lord's prayer. 203 

Spirit of heaven departed from Saul and the evil spirit from 
the Lord entered. It is said four times, and perhaps five 
times in rapid succession. The Lord had tried to do his 
best for Saul, and Saul would not be done the best by. He 
went on and on and on. The evil spirit from the Lord 
came not from hell. You have not heard an intimation 
of anything near the region of hell. It is all from heaven, 
from the beginning to the end. And, say you, these 
scriptures are all from the Old Testament ? Let us go to 
the New. 

In the mouth of both of these witnesses everything shall 
be established. When I go to the New Testament, I see 
the devil is there perfectly unconfmed, entering into the 
bodies of men, and doing pretty much as he pleases. Once 
when Jesus wanted to cast them out of him who had a 
legion in him, they entreated him that he would not send 
them into the abyss. That same word is translated bot- 
tomless pit in the 20th chapter of Revelations where the 
angel comes down and lays hold of him and casts him into 
the bottomless pit. " Oh, son of God, why hast thou come 
to torment us before our time." They had not been in 
torment. Yes, devils believe and tremble. They knew the 
work of the Son of God. They knew that Jesus came 
to destroy the works of the devil, and defeat him that had 
the power of death. When the disciples returned to Jesus 
in triumph, saying, Oh, Lord, we can not only cure people, 
but even the devils are subject to us through thy name ; 
then Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, O Lord, 
I saw Satan falling as lightning from heaven. That is what 
he saw, and Satan will one of these days fall as lightning 
from heaven. That was the sweet prophetic word, that was 
an anticipation, just as holy John said : " And I saw new 
heavens and a new earth," that had not been, "and I saw 



204 THE lord's prayer. 

the Bride — The Lamb's wife." He saw it in anticipation. 
I could give you five hundred cases of the past tense to ex- 
press something in the future.* So the dear blessed Jesus 
said, "I saw Satan falling as lightning" — from where? 
From Hell ? No. " I saw Saran falling as lightning from 
heaven." Ah, here was a sweet foretaste for his own 
children, endued with power. 

So in the sweet rehearsal of ultimate triumphs, the day is 
coming when the kingdoms of this world are to become the 
kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. And so you will 
find all through Scripture. It would tire you if I were to 
quote all these Scriptures, but let us go to the 12th of Reve- 
lations. God and the angels put up with the devil as best 
they can. Michael will have to say, The Lord rebuke thee, 
Satan. Michael, when he disputed with the devil about a 
body, durst not bring a railing accusation against him, but 
said, Jehovah rebuke thee, Satan ; and in that passage of 
Zechariah, one of the most wonderful passages in the Bible, 
Jehovah who is represented as speaking respectfully to the 
devil, says, " Jehovah rebuke thee, Satan, is this not a brand 
plucked out of the burning ?" Remember that Michael, the 
archangel, dared not bring a railing accusation against this 
devil, but said, Jehovah, rebuke thee, and Jehovah him- 
self, sitting on his throne said, Jehovah rebuke thee ; and 
all this in heavenly places. 

Paul presents his view in the 6th Chapter to the Ephesi- 
ans. We are speaking about living the higher life ; not liv- 
ing in the 7th of Romans, with our shield out of our hands 
and our helmet gone, the devil having us down and tramp- 
ling on us. We must have the sword of the spirit, which is 

*In Hebrew the tenses are indefinite. The true historic tense is a 
Future with Van prefixed. In the New Testament the tenses follow 
Hebrew usage : the past and future are interchangeable. Ed. 



THE lord's prayer. 205 

the word of God in our hand, and never put the armor of 
God on your back, for you never calculate on running away. 
Now, says Paul, in that condition : " Our warfare is not 
with flesh and blood " — it may have been with these lower 
things when we were in the seventh of Romans — " Our 
warfare is with principalities and powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in heavenly places." Our translation has " High places." 
Let me tell you how the devil got that in five times in 
Ephesians. Four times where it is spoken about Christ be- 
ing there and the redeemed being there, it is properly put, 
heavenly places. When it comes to the devil being there 
they put it high places ? I simply call your attention to this. 

If I had the word of God to translate I have not the least 
doubt that all my learning and scholarship — if I had any — 
would be warped by my early education. God bless them 
for the precious work they did ; only they did some devil's 
work, as men will always do. They left the gospel out of 
the opening of Genesis (iii, 16 ; iv, 7.). " In heavenly 
places." There is where the devil is, and there is where our 
fight is to-day. Not with flesh and blood, but with princi- 
palities and powers. In the heavenlies ; exactly where 
Jesus Christ is said to be and where the saints are said to be, 
in heavenly places. Therefore, the devil is called the prince 
of the powers of the aerial regions, or the air. 

Who, do you think, sends all these infernal hurricanes and 
tornadoes that tear up trees by the root ; these horrible cy- 
clones that kill women and children, and casts down barns on 
poor helpless horses and cows. Does this look like God ? 
Yes, you people that believe in the Juggernaut god, think 
that it is God that sends all the mischief on the face of the 
earth. God sits up in heaven and delights to kill cattle and 
poor horses ; delights to kill women and children. Ah, he 



206 

is the God of carnage. He just sniffs the battle afar off, and 
his hands are wet with the blood of the helpless. Do you 
call that God. That is not my conception of God as re- 
vealed in Scriptures. He is not my God. My God is the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that always loves ; that 
never hates, that blesses and never curses. My friends, 
give God credit for being good ; learn to know the devil's 
voice when you hear it. There is not a good voice of God 
in the world but what is mixed with something of the devil's. 
The sweet showers that make the grass to grow are of God, 
but the lightning and the thunders, and the storm that 
twists the grass and throws trees down is from the devil. 
God is trying his best wherever he can to make everything 
come down sweetly, softly ; but man's sin makes a handle 
for the devil ; and so he takes hold of the sweetest blessings 
of God, and turns them to curses ; thus our family joys and 
courtesies, everything that God designs to be a sweet cup of 
joy for us, the devil comes and mingles gall and wormwood 
with. What is the use of masquerading, and saying we do 
not know these things. We do know and have knowledge 
of the existence of the devil. 

Thank God that in the 12th of Revelations I have an in- 
timation of where this thing is going to end ; when Jesus 
comes to take the church of the first born. Oh, joy of joys; 
the devils cannot be forever in heaven. Yes ; glory be to 
our Saviour's love and the finished work of our Christ, the 
finished work of him who is all love, when we rise to meet 
him in the air, that is the signal for the devils to get out of 
heaven. Now Michael and his angels come. He is cast 
out. Then rises a shout among the heavenly ones : " Re- 
joice ye heavens ; rejoice ye heavens ; " the first sound of 
rejoicing of that kind that has ever been heard ; for the ac- 
cuser of our brethren is cast down who has accused them 



THE lord's prayer. 207 

before God day and night ; look how he accused Job, look 
how he accuses you. The accuser of our brethren who ac- 
cuses them before God day and night is cast down to the 
earth. " Wo unto you, Oh, ye inhabitants of earth and of 
the sea, because the devil is come down to you having great 
wrath." Oh, that wrath, whetted by his rejection from 
heaven ; boiling with wrath ; red hot, white hot with wrath. 
Wo unto you, ye inhabitants of earth, because the devil has 
come down, having great wrath, because he knows he has 
but a little time. It is made little because, if Jesus Christ 
had not shortened it for the elect's sake, no flesh should have 
been saved. There is tribulation ; there is trouble such as 
the world has never seen, and will never see again. Such 
as Jesus speaks of in the 25th chapter of Matthew. 

I am going up with the church of the first-born when he 
comes down. I would not stay down here for ten thousand 
worlds when the devil comes down ; but he is coming down, 
and is going to turn the earth into hell ; for a little while ; 
but after the fearful tribulation is over, there comes down a 
strong angel out of heaven and the devil is confined for the 
first time. The rising of the church of the first-born is the 
signal for it. Then the strong angel binds him with chains 
and casts him into the abyss : thrusts him into the bottom- 
less pit. 

Then bursts out the glorious millennium, when the lion's 
teeth is no longer curved for eating flesh, but is square like 
the ox's for eating grass, like the ox. Then the leopard and 
kid can lie down together ; then the venom is out of the 
serpents's tooth. That is the good time coming — a thousand 
years of peace and blessedness, when we shall reign over the 
earth with the dear Lord Jesus. After that the devil shall 
be loosed for a little while and get the whole world into a 
blaze of rebellion. Then comes a counterblast, and the fire 



208 THE lord's prayer. 

of God comes down and smites the rebels ; and the devil is 
taken this time, and put where he will never be loosed. 
Taken not into the bottomless pit. He can get out of that ; 
but now he is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone ; and 
the smoke of his torment shall rise up forever and ever — 
praise the Lord. Does it sound savage in me to say this 
thing ? No, no, I am to hate the devil ; by my loyalty to 
Jesus Christ I am to hate the devil, because Jesus Christ 
came to destroy — not sinners, he came to save them ; but he 
came to destroy the devil. I rejoice that I shall stand upon 
the heights of glory singing " hallelujah, the Lord God om- 
nipotent reigneth," and the devil in the lake of fire ; and 
I am glad of it, praise the Lord ; and the smoke of his tor- 
ment shall rise up forever and ever. I shall never be more 
like Jesus than when I utter that shout of victory over the 
devil cast into the lake of fire. It is war to the knife ; war 
to the hilt, with the black flag floating, and no quarter asked 
and none given. I hate him, and he hates me. I have done 
all the damage I could to him, and I will continue to do so 
until my strength is taken away, and until I mount up to 
meet my Jesus in the air. God bless every one of you. I 
think you will understand that prayer better. 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



[John iii. 14-36.] 

If you will read the whole of the third chapter of the Gos- 
pel according to St. John, you will not fail to notice a great 
difference between the first thirteen and subsequent verses. 
The first thirteen verses of John, indeed, are an enigma to 
this day. They are a perpetual puzzle. I doubt whether 
their meaning has ever yet been fully understood. We all 
think we understand them. Oh, yes, that is a very different 
thing. I thought I knew all about it when I came out of 
the seminary, a green lad, to enlighten the world, and set it 
on fire. One of the first sermons I ever preached was on 
being born again. Every man has a sort of fancy ; I do 
not know w T hat it is ; there is a sort of fascination about the 
thing. The devil seems to persuade us all that we under- 
stand the third chapter of John, if we do not understand 
anything else, and up to this day, though volume after volume 
of theology has been written upon it, the world is in just as 
great ignorance of the first thirteen verses, as it was when it 
set out. I have heard the brightest minds in America expa- 
tiate upon it. I have heard men North, South, East and West 
preach upon being born again, but to this day I do not know 
what it means ; I can tell you that ; and the Lord has told 
me a great deal about the Scripture. I have been subject 
to the Word of God, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. I have 
heard a great deal that I never knew before ; a great deal 
that others did not know, but I have not been instructed on 



210 LOOK AXD LIVE, 

the first thirteen verses of the third chapter of John So that 
I dare venture to instruct others. There are parts of scrip- 
ture that I can teach, others that I cannot teach. I will not 
keep back the counsel of God if I know it, but I do not know 
what the first thirteen verses mean, and therefore I never 
teach it ; but when you come to the fourteenth verse, it is 
just the difference between the waters of the Upper Missis- 
sippi and the Lower Mississippi, one is all mud ; it takes 
the tincture of the stream lhat flows from away out yonder 
at the Rocky Mountain into it, and the other is the sweet, 
clear crystal water that flows from the blessed lakes and 
springs of the North. And so when you come to the four- 
teenth verse, there is no mud in that ; there is no difficulty 
about that. " God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." That is as clear as the 
stream that flows from God and from the Lamb. There is 
not a particle of mud in that. 

" As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have eternal life/* 

There is no difficulty about that. God sent his Son into 
the world not to condemn the world; not to raise the question 
of sin ; not to snatch men by the hair of the head, and rend 
them and tear them and talk harshly to them — God never 
did that ; never raised the question of sin on a sinner from 
the time he came into the world until the time he went out. 
You cannot show that he did. If it is in the Bible you ought 
to be able to show it. If it is not there then you ought to 
believe my theory. God did not send his Son into the world 
to condemn it. He sent his son into it to save it. 

I believe in a hell as firmly as I believe in a heaven, I 
believe in men perishing just as firmly as I believe in men 



LOOK AXD LIVE. 211 

being saved ; but that is not a part of God's plan to damn 
anybody. That is what the devil wants. I am sorry to say 
he has his way in a great many cases. God does not send 
his Son into the world to condemn, but that the world might 
have life if it wants life. If any man is condemned he is 
condemned against the plan of God, for God's plan is to 
save everybody. Can God's plan be thwarted ? Yes ; for 
God has decreed from all eternity that this plan can never 
be carried out except on the basis of a willing mind in a 
sinner. Men and the devil can thwart God's purpose in the 
matter of individual salvation. Men are doing it every day 
they live ; thwarting God's plan, destroying his purpose, and 
making him to sit down, as Jesus sat down over Jerusalem, 
saying, I have spent my strength in vain. I have labored 
for nought. '* Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often willed I 
to save you — to gather you as a hen would gather her brood 
under her wings, but you willed not." I could not save you 
against your will. He wrings His hands, and the hot scald- 
ing tears course each other down his cheeks, and he turns 
away broken-hearted, as a man turns away from his brightest 
hopes laid in the dust. That is the heart of God, for Jesus Christ 
is God — God manifested. God sent his Son into the world 
to save the world ; but the world can be damned in spite of 
all. The world might be saved, but it is not saved. 

This is the condemnation, and the only condemnation in 
Scripture : " Because they have not believed on the name of 
the only begotten Son of God." That is the condemnation. 
He that believeth not shall be damned. There is no other 
condemnation. No man can be damned unless he rejects 
the Savior. That is what God says. 

Dear friends, if I were sick with fever, or small-pox, or 
cholera, and there, was nothing provided for my recovery, 
and I were to die, of course it would be written with truth- 



212 LOOK AND LIVE. 

fulness upon my tombstone that I died of fever, of small- 
pox or of cholera, or typhoid pneumonia ; but if a physician 
came to my bedside with a medicine that never failed to 
cure, and pressed it upon my acceptance, and entreated me 
with tears in his eyes to take it, telling me how it had 
wrought thousands of cures ; how it had never once failed ; 
and I said, I will have none of your medicine, and I turn my 
face to the wall and die, what is the truth ? I did not die of 
the disease. Why ? There was the cure of it right in his 
hand. It was right at my bedside, and I died because I 
would not take the remedy. Do you say I died with fever 
or small-pox or cholera, my friends ? If you do you do not 
tell the whole truth, and the suppression of a part of the 
truth is as bad as lying. " The truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth." The reason I died was not because 
a disease was upon me, but because the remedy was rejec- 
ted. Any one who writes on my tombstone he died of that 
or this disease, writes a lie. 

God clears His skirts and washes his hands, and stands 
before the universe, and says, "As I live," says the Lord, " I 
have no pleasure in death." Any man that dies dies by his 
own hand. Dies a suicide, dies a self-murderer. A man 
kills himself ; damns himself. 

I perfectly agree with Col. Ingersoll that there is no God 
that will damn a man for speaking his mind, or doing any- 
thing else. It is the devil on God's throne that does that. 
God is the life-giver, not the life-destroyer. The Lord says 
if you will destroy yourself I have nothing to do with you, 
but in me is your ransom. I can save you, so the Bible de- 
clares all along. This is the condemnation, because light 
came into the world, men loved darkness rather than light. 
This is the condemnation. They have not believed on the 



LOOK A]S T D LIVE. 213 

name and teaching of the only begotten Son of God. Words 
could not make it any clearer. 

I want to call your attention to this precious gospel which 
is as clear as crystal. Never mind the first thirteen verses 
of the third chapter of John. If I were to attempt to ex- 
plain them, very likely I would leave you in greater per- 
plexity than before. I have no intention to explain it, but to 
offer a possible reason why they stand as an enigma before 
the world to-day ; and there is nobody that knows the mean- 
ing of them. 

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He was a man that 
wanted salvation, and was of an enquiring turn of mind ; 
wanted to take up everything he could find that was worth 
having. Struck by the teachings of this teacher he went to 
him. The man had a reputation to sustain among men. He 
was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, and the rulers did not 
take to Jesus. Have any of the rulers believed on him ? 
No. Then manifestly a ruler of the Jews, if he were to come 
to Jesus at all, and wanted to sustain his reputation, had to 
come on the sly. Nicodemus tried to carry water on both 
shoulders ; tried to keep his reputation and his position in 
the Sanhedrim as a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, and 
wanted to take up what he could get from Jesus too. Let 
me tell you the name he was called by: " the man that came 
to Jesus by night." He never bears any other but that name. 
He never will bear any other name but that through the 
countless ages ; for the name that I make on earth I bear 
in heaven. 

I shall see Nicodemus in heaven, certainly I shall. I 
know he went there. He was a saint of the Lord just like 
Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret believer, who wanted 
salvation, who trusted the Savior and loved him. Did not 
Nicodemus throw in about a hundred pounds of precious 



214 LOOK AJSTD LITE. 

spice ? did not Joseph volunteer his own tomb to bury the 
Savior in ? Yes ; anything that a man could do, and save 
his own respectability they would do. These respectable 
followers of Jesus Christ were saved, for believing in Jesus 
will save a man. I do not care how mean he is afterwards; 
but Joseph goes down to the ringing ages with this title, 
" Secretly a believer for fear of the Jews." How would you 
like to have that title tacked on to your name ? 

These two followers of our blessed Savior seem to have 
been buried in his tomb. They never set the world on fire. 
We do not hear of them joining that prayer meeting of a 
hundred and twenty. It was not for such people as that to 
do that. They were never heard of. They seem to have 
been buried in the tomb of Jesus and never to have got out. 
That is the last of them. They disappeared mysteriously. 
Better let them go. 

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. God grant that you 
may never be such a follower as that. He came with a pat- 
ronizing air and said, master, we know that you are a rabbi ; 
we know that you are a teacher sent from God ; for no man 
can do these miracles that you have wrought unless God 
be with him. He was a man who had always been tak- 
ing up information wherever he could find it, and he was 
not too proud to come to a man who he knew was wiser 
than he, and ask him. He said, you are a teacher sent 
from God. I know you have got something to communi- 
cate. Great teacher, teach me. 

Says Jesus, very well, sit down there ; I will teach you. 
Take a seat, Nicodemus. Yes, I am a teacher sent from 
God. Let me teach you a little, Nicodemus. " Unless a 
man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." I 
can see that proud ruler just sitting in his place looking in- 
to the Master's face ; eyes dilated and staring at him. 



LOOK AND LIVE. 215 

Born, born, born again ? " Can a man enter the second 
time into his mother's womb and be born ? " "I don't 
know what you mean." Of course he did not. " I thought 
you came here to be taught, Nicodemus. I am just teach- 
ing you, that is all. I will give you another lesson." " Mar* 
vel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it 
goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit." Still 
more puzzled, Nicodemus replies, " Master, I hear your 
words, but, oh, dear, I do not understand these things." 
" Why, I am surprised. Do you not understand what I am 
teaching you ? Why, these are nothing but earthly lessons. 
If you do not understand the things that are earthly, how 
can you understand if I were to teach you of heaven." (I am 
not going to open my Bible there. I am going to tell you 
just as it is written there in my own loose phraseology.) " If 
you do not understand earthly things, how can you under- 
stand heavenly things." Now sit still (for he is twisting and 
turning and squirming, for a man does not like to look like 
a fool ; it is a very humiliating position for a proud man to 
be in.) Now, he says, sit still, let me give you heavenly 
teaching : '* No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he 
that came down from heaven." Nicodemus did not have 
the courage to say how ? or what ? He just sat there. The 
fact is, the gas was out. The man came there puffed up 
with earthly knowledge, and you cannot fill up a bottle 
with wine if it is full of water. You have got to empty out 
the water before you put the wine in. So Jesus knew there 
was no use of talking about the gospel with him until he 
was an "emptied vessel." What was the first necessity? 
To let out the worldly conceit. In three short lessons, two 
from earth and one from heaven, he took the conceit so 



216 LOOK AND LIVE. 

completely out of this proud ruler of the Jews, this teacher 
of other men, that he sat there bewildered. That is a good 
place to hear the gospel when a man has got the conceit 
taken out. Jesus never lets a man go through that without 
it is absolutely necessary ; without it is a dernier resort. He 
knows too well what heaven's jewels are to tempt the swine 
with them. 

Jesus, as soon as he saw the man was somewhat reduced 
in his own estimation ; the self conceit taken out of him, 
and in a condition to receive the truth, He says ; now you 
are something like a little child, I can teach you something. 
Dear, dear soul, let me tell you what is the matter with you. 
You are just as clever and as wise as the rest of the Phari- 
sees. I am not depreciating your sense or wisdom at all by 
asking you of these things. Here is what you know and 
what you do not, and you do not want to be taught. That 
is not your pressing need. What you need is to be saved. 
Let me show you how to be saved. Let us have everything 
in due order. Did you ever send one of your children to 
school before it was born ? That is out of the question. 
That w r as exactly what Nicodemus wanted to do. He was 
trying to learn before he was born. Wherever I go, I do 
not care where it is, I find men coming to me and wanting 
me to teach them lessons that nobody in the world has any 
right to know anything about except Christians. The devil 
persuades them to ask questions about something that no- 
body but a mature Christian can understand ; the doctrine 
of "predestination," the method of "baptism," "free will," 
" human agency," "divine foreordination," " the counsel of 
God,"- where these two things come together ; deep lesson 
that Paul never presumed to teach until he got to the ninth 
Chapter of Romans, after the marriage to Jesus Christ had 
been settled, and consecration of life had been settled, then 



LOOK AXD LIVE. 217 

he took them into the doctrine of predestination. But the 
devil sets them to asking questions about the doctrine of 
predestination before they are saved at all, and they say, un- 
less I can see through it I am not going to come at all to 
Jesus. It is the old dodge of the devil. He is up to all 
such tricks as that. It is the same as the young man I have 
already spoken to you of ; the man that wanted to get mar- 
ried, and read, " If you do not leave father and mother and 
wife and children and houses and lands and follow me, you 
cannot be my disciple." He thought God would not help 
him till he was willing to let his sweetheart go, and he could 
not do that. How many thousands of people perish right 
there. They let the devil put them to study things they have 
no business to study. What a burdener the devil is. Jesus's 
way is a way of pleasure, and all his ways are ways of 
peace. 

Nicodemus, who was in the same category with those I 
hare mentioned, wanted to be taught. When he found he 
could not understand what was taught, Jesus said, I am so 
glad you want to be saved. 

Now we are out of the hist thirteen verses of the third 
Chapter of John ; except that I do not understand them, 
and you do not. You do not understand them any better 
than I do ; and if you think you do, may God show you that 
you do not understand one single thing. Set a Methodist 
and Baptist to talking about the third chapter of John, and 
you will find out that one of them does not understand any- 
thing about it. They both think they do, but when they 
lock horns you will come to the conclusion that neither one 
of them knows. In a quarrel, we are in the habit of saying 
both are wrong, and that is the fact. 

Let us now understand the way to salvation. 

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 



218 LOOK AND LIVE. 

must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth 
in him might have everlasting life. 

The people were in the camp. These fiery serpents came 
sliding into the camp and bit many people, and much people 
died. Their bite was certain death, and while they were 
threatening to annihilate the camp, the people came to Moses 
and said, pray the Lord that he take away the serpents. 
And Moses prayed to the Lord to take away the serpents. 
He took it as the people did. He could think of nothing 
else ; but God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. God 
says, make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole out- 
side the camp, and if it come to pass any one is bitten, when 
he looketh upon it he shall live. That settles it. He would 
not take away the serpent, because, if he took it away, there 
might have been a great many people that would not have 
got wide enough awake to make even a prayer. 

The devil stands at the head of all the snakes. He has put 
the poison in the serpent's tooth. That is the reason I 
always kill one when the opportunity presents itself. That 
is the only animal I kill except a mosquito. Whenever I 
see one of the devil's works I will kill it. 

So, my friends, these snakes, coming as they did right 
red hot from the devil — the devil's agents — if you drove them 
off one day they would come back the next. The devil has 
got no end of patience. But the Lord, who knew better 
than man, said, I am not going to take away the snakes. I 
will do something better. I will render the camp impreg- 
nable. 

Brother, sister, do you know that what God gives us back 
is not a restoration of the old Adamic innocence ? He does 
not take away the fact of sin, and set us back in the Garden 
of Eden innocently naked. No ; thank God forever. Better 
than that, my friends. I would rather be Adam or Eve 



LOOK AXD LIVE. £19 

clothed with the garment that God gave them, than Adam 
or Eve in innocence in that garden ten thousand times. To 
a man working out his own salvation, a man standing on 
his own spotless purity, the devil might come in any day. 
Let me stand in creature innocence, creature righteousness, 
and the devil can come in any day. I would not stand on 
such slippery ground for ten thousand worlds. But let me 
tell you where I do stand ; clothed in the garments of Jesus 
Christ. God can make a coat as well as any one. God 
clorhed them with skins, and sent them out of that garden. 
That was no place for them. For an innocent creature yes, 
but for a sinner saved by grace, no. Outside of the garden, 
clothed in the garment that God has given them, standing 
in God's righteousness, the devil cannot touch them. My 
life is not within reach of the devil, because it is the life of 
Jesus Christ I have got now. It is not the old life of inno- 
cence. The devil might lay his dirty finder on that ; but 
the life of Christ, he can never take that. When Christ 
dies, then I will die, but because I live ye shall live also. 
My life is hid with Christ in God out of the reach of the 
devil. Praise the Lord, but out of my reach too, just 
as a loving mother takes away a handsome watch that she 
gives to her daughter ten years old, and says, mother 
gave it to you. It has got your name on it ; there it is ; 
given to my daughter on her tenth birthday ; but my pet, 
you do not know how to take care of it. Lay it away. 
Let me turn a key upon it, and some of these days you will 
say : thank you, mother, you have taken care of that watch 
so nicely for me until I was able to take care of it myself. 
So God when he gives you eternal life, gives it certainly, 
surely. It is our birthday. It is given in the name of Jesus, 
and given forever ; but, says He, my child, you would lose 
it if I let vou have it now. And I will hide it away where 



220 LOOK AXD LIVE. 

you cannot find it nor the devil either, and some of these 
days you will thank me. 

I thank my God that he did not put us back to statu quo. 
I thank my God that when he saved us He gave us an ever- 
lasting life. An everlasting life is a life, that lasts forever. 
I do not know the meaning of the word if it is something 
that the devil can take from you at the end of ten years. 
Then it is not everlasting life, and if it is not the devil has 
sadly deceived us. When I believed on Him he gave me 
what He called everlasting life, and I have no idea of His 
ever taking it away again for any want of loyalty of mine. 
The Lord is not going to put himself in -the wrong in that 
way. He gave that eternal life on the basis that we were 
sinners ; on the basis that we did not deserve anything ; on 
the basis that He knew everything that we ever had done or 
would do forever. Gave it to us for the sake of His son 
because I endorsed his finished work ; because I like to 
give praise to the Lord for his eternal gift. God is not an 
Indian giver. He does not give and then take away the 
gift. The gift of God is everlasting life, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. It is given because I am a sinner. Is it 
going to be taken away because I am a sinner ? That would 
be stultification on the face of it. To say God gives me 
eternal life because I am a sinner, and God damns me 
because I am a sinner is stultification. Is sin in the future 
more damnable by God than sin in the past ? No, no, ray 
friends, God is not going to damn me for a sin He saves me 
for. This is worthy of all exaltation, that Jesus Christ came 
into the world to save sinners. He saved me when I was a 
sinner. Saved me in my sins, just as I was, and with 
Almighty knowledge of what I was to be ; simply on the 
basis that His son had borne all my sins, past, present, and 
future, upon the cross, and gave it to me, and gave me the 



LOOK AND LITE. 221 

receipt in full on the basis of that. Think you he is going 
to damn me for the same sin in the future. I snap my finger 
at future sin. I stand as Paul did. "For I am persuaded 
that neither death nor life nor principalities nor powers — 
(He is talking about the devil now) — nor things present nor 
things to come — (anything, it does not matter) — nor any 
other creature, can separate me from the love of God 
which is in Christ Jesus. So, do not you be afraid if the 
devil wants to rob you of the full joy of an everlasting sal- 
vation ; wants to keep you stirred up with the idea that may 
be you will do something to damn yourself after a while. 
He does that in order that you may spend all your life try- 
ing to make your own salvation certain instead of trying to 
make your calling and election sure, to get the chosen place, 
the crown of life. The devil sets you to thinking whether 
you are going to get there ; whether you are going to be 
saved; and "shall I get there," "shall I escape hell." Ninety- 
nine Christians out of a hundred are considering that ques- 
tion all their lives. A man in that fix cannot think of God. 
A man in that fix cannot run the race. He is too heavily 
handicapped. There is no use of running a foot under such 
a condition as that. You have to strip the sinner ; to lay 
aside the sin that doth so easily beset you. 

The devil knows perfectly well how to handicap us all. 
With ninety-nine Christians out of a hundred he makes this 
question of the soul's salvation an uncertainty. He keeps 
a poor child stirred up as to whether he is going to be 
saved ; whether he is going to heaven. You never can get a 
crown in that way. 

Thank God that he has made it all so perfectly plain. 
He that believeth in the Son shall not perish. What, 
nothing more? Nothing more. It is not he that believeth 
and is baptized. No, that is in another part of the Scrip- 



222 LOOK AXD LIVE, 

ture, and as God shall give me liberty I shall explain that in 
due time. It is not he that believeth and sticks to it all the 
time ; but " he that believeth on the Son " — nothing more, 
nothing less — " has everlasting life." Has life that lasts 
forever. Can you put it any plainer ? And they shall not 
come unto judgment. Why? Because he is good? Be- 
cause he has lived faithfully ? No : because he believed, 
and has passed from death to life. That is all. Praise the 
Lord, there is the sinner's salvation in its rounded com- 
pleteness, on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ. " He 
that believeth shall have everlasting life ; " that is positive ; 
"and shall not come unto judgment/' that is negative, be- 
cause he hath passed from death unto life. How mighty is 
the logic of the Gospel. 

What can we do but to stand and look into the Lord's 
face, and say, " Bless the Lord, O my soul " ? That is what 
I do. Now I am unfettered, unburdened, I do not think 
about my soul's salvation one minute in the three hundred 
and sixty-five days of the year. The thought whether I am 
going to be saved never crosses my mind. I have laid that 
on the shelf as a finished question, and I am stripped and 
ready for the race ; and I am going to win. I am going to 
get in ahead. I am going to obtain the prize. All the 
powers of hell shall not keep me from it. There is where I 
stand. I have not the slightest care of what is going to be- 
come of me after this. Oh, let us understand, my friends, 
that God did not take away the serpent. He made the 
camp impregnable ; lifted up the serpent on a pole. 

The next lesson that we learn is this: "And it came to 
pass that whosoever looked, lived." Do you know it is the 
easiest thing in the world to be saved ? The devil says it is 
mighty hard to be saved, it is a mighty hard thing to keep 
your salvation after you have got it. He is the Father of 



LOOK AND LIVE. 223 

lies, and if you listen to him he will just lie to you three 
hundred and sixty-five days in the year. Saints, you never 
will be anything as Christians until you learn fairly and 
squarely to stand up when the devil does lie, and tell him 
he lies. There are two things for a Christian to do ; the 
first is to praise the Lord, and the next is to stand fairly 
and squarely and tell the devil he lies when he does lie. 
Give God his due, and give the devil his due. Give every- 
body his due. God says, " My yoke is easy, my burden is 
light. My commandments are never grievous." I believe 
the Lord and do not believe the devil. Do you say, My 
burden is pretty hard on me ? Then you are a poor Chris- 
tian. It is a very hard thing to be a poor Christian. It is a 
hard thing to be a poor preacher. I was a poor preacher 
twenty-two years. It nearly killed me. I had to go to 
Saratoga nearly every Summer, and was nearly worn out. 
Now I do not need to take rest. I would if I was tired. I 
preach three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and 
feel no sense of weariness. " His commandments are never 
grievous.' , " His yoke is easy." I have determined never 
to take up any yoke but his yoke, and when his yoke is 
taken up there is no trouble about it. 

It is the easiest thing in the world to be saved. You may 
take any illustration of this from the Scripture you please. 
Jesus Christ is called the " bread of life." Can you imagine 
anything easier to do when a man is hungry than to eat a 
piece of bread ? Any child can understand that the easiest 
thing for a hungry man to do is to eat something. That is 
God's way. There is Jesus Christ. " I am the bread of 
life." What will you do ? I will eat as a hungry man does. 
It is a figure, you see, but the central point of the figure is 
this, it is easy to do. Food is the only thing that meets 
hunger. 



#24 LOOK AKD LIVE. 

Whosoever will drink, let him drink freely. It is the 
easiest thing in the world on a hot day when you get tired 
and thirsty to swallow a glass of water ; so it is the easiest 
thing in the world for a sinner to be saved. Take any illus- 
tration at random. If you are naked or cold, it is the easiest 
thing in the world and the most proper thing to do to put 
something on. " Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ." The 
point still is easiness. Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ — 
a garment on a naked skin. It is the easiest thing in the 
world, as well as the most proper. Do not you see that 
Jesus Christ is trying to show you what an easy thing it is 
to be saved, and the devil is trying to make it hard ? But 
God has made it easy for us. Says Jesus, " I am the door." 
One moment this morning I was outside of the door. I just 
made a motion and then I was in ; that is all. I was out- 
side. There is no doubt about that. Well, what put me in- 
side ? I took a step. Was that hard to do ? "I am the 
door. By me if any man shall enter in " — that is all. The 
going in and out and finding pasture, that is higher life. 
That has nothing to do with a sinner's salvation. God chops 
it right off by saying, " If any man shall enter in he shall 
be saved." 

So it is with the brazen serpent. It came to pass whoso- 
ever looked, lived. The idea is simplicity, ease. My breth- 
ren do you want any more ? Go to your Bibles. You can- 
not find an illustration that God has given of his blessed sal- 
vation but what bears out its easiness. The devil would try 
to make it hard ; that is the reason he says it was hard for 
him who died upon the cross. It is easy for you. Only 
confess the blessed name of Jesus. Thou shalt be saved if 
you only will confess me. How easy it is to say yes. ■ 

My friend, do you receive Jesus as your Savior the best 
you can ? Not the best I can. God does not hold you re- 



LOOK AND LIVE. 225 

sponsible for my knowledge or advance. So he says, " If 
there be first a willing mind God accepts a man just as he 
is, and not as he is not. The only question that ever I will 
ask if I have the joy of asking any question, is this : Will 
you take Jesus as your Savior the best you can ? And brother 
if you say yes, I have got a right to stand in the sight of 
God and say, you are a child of God, and if you are not 
saved, I will be willing to stand in your place. In the sight 
of men and angels, and in the sight of God himself I will 
say that. I know this soul has opened its mouth and taken 
in a mouthful of bread ; has opened its mouth and taken in 
a draft of water ; has put on the garment. It is bread that 
gives life ; it is water that gives life. It is the garment that 
clothes. Praise the Lord for an easy salvation. God has 
made it easy. 

The Lord said, put up a snake. Why did not he put up 
Aaron's rod, or Moses's rod in redemption ? There is only 
one thing that is redemption, and that is a snake. Do you 
know who the great serpent was ? Do you know the snake 
is the embodiment of everything we know about sin? 
Do you know that is the way sin came into this world ? 
The way transgression came into this world. The devil in 
the shape of a serpent deceived our first parents. That old 
serpent, the devil, is the incarnation of sin ; the embodi- 
ment of it. God says, put the snake up there. You have 
heard often under an adage, a wonderful truth. Often- 
times underneath an amiable, modest laugh, there are great 
spiritual truths hidden. One is, " If you are sick, take the 
hair of the dog that bit you." That has its foundation 
deeper than the slang phrase that is in the public mind. 
The devil tries to turn everything into fooling. That is a 
slang echo of the truth that a sinner cannot be saved unless 
there is a snake on that pole. Your salvation and mine de- 



22G LOOK AXD LIVE. 

pends on Jesus being made sin ; though he knew no sin, he 
has got to be sin incarnated, as he is God incarnated. He 
has got to be a snake lifted up on a pole — a sinner lifted 
up on the cross. There is a sinner hangs there, that is the 
epitome of the human race. There is a sinner damned ; 
there is a sinner saved. The sinner saved said Jesus, Lord. 
The sinner damned said nothing. The sinner saved never 
turned over a new leaf. When he hung there to expiate his 
crimes upon the gallows, he turned and says, " Jesus, Lord." 
Jesus said, " To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." 
There was a sinner damned and a sinner saved. Like the 
human race, with Jesus standing in the midst on that little 
cross. This world never saw such a scene. On that center 
cross are the sins of the world. On that central cross hung 
him who took all our sins, though he knew no sin. 

Brother hang a snake there ; hang a sinner on the cross ; 
hang such a sinner as the world has never seen before. 
Nothing else can express redemption but that — a serpent 
upon a pole. And it shall come to pass if any man shall 
look he shall live. That is the reason sin is all put away ; 
everything put away by the sacrifice of him who died for 
us. That is the reason that I look upon the Saviour. That 
is the reason I have nothing to do but to confess the name 
of him who did it all, praise his name. Praise the Lord that 
there was a serpent 

One fact in conclusion, and that is this, God made you 
to look at the cross. The devil tries to get us to look away. 
The devil wants to get up plausible things — cunning coun- 
terfeits, in the church and out of it, that have ruined the 
happiness of saints, and destroyed the souls of sinners. 

I have seen a picture that hung in one of the galleries of 
the world. It now hangs in one of the galleries of Europe, 
priceless in cost, painted by a monk in the dark ages ; show- 



LOOK AND LIVE. 227 

ing that God has never been without witnesses even in the 
darkest times. Down in the dark ages that man preached 
the gospel ; and knelt on the cold flags of his cell every 
night, perhaps, before a crucifix. That man threw his soul 
upon the canvas. He was a born painter you can see by 
every touch of his pencil. There is the work of art. This 
monk threw his life into his picture, which now hangs, price- 
less in cost, in one of the galleries of Europe. The man, 
by rare, wonderful insight, has linked the old dispensation 
and the new. A serpent is wreathed around a cross. In the 
snake's head he has made to come out everything that is 
vile. Oh, such an ugly serpent's head ! Such a serpent's 
he<ad was never painted before or since, perhaps ; with all 
the guile and hatred of hell in him. All the ugliness that 
the genius of man could imagine is put in his head. In the 
terror of his tongue, the open mouth, and the horrid expres- 
sion that leers out of that serpent's eye, he has put the very 
incarnation of sin. He has linked the old and the new, by 
putting that horrible serpent upon a cross. It is not Christ, 
in his earthly agony, gentle and tender. It is a horrid ser- 
pent's head ; and that horrid serpent's head looking over the 
cross bar, instead of the patient face of the dear Savior. But 
the chief charm of the picture consists in the grouping 
around it. Moses is standing there, right before the cross, 
and the cross is set up beside the camp, as Jesus was slain 
before the camp. Moses is standing there, not with a rod 
in his hand, but standing as I stand before you to-day, as 
man to man, pointing with outstretched linger, as if to say, 
I come to you with no rod of authority. I do not come to 
you as an officer of the law, but as a man. As man speaks 
to man ; as one saved by grace — as I speak to you to-day. 
Moses is looking at it and pointing at it with his finger. 
There is a group, and they are dying, every one. The ser- 



228 LOOK AND LIVE. 

pents there are active, and you can see them biting the peo- 
ple. You can see upon the faces of the people the perfect 
ghastliness of death. They are all dying, men, women and 
children. What is the matter with them ? Just what is the 
matter to-day. I will tell you. Do you want to know? 
These people are looking away to the tents of Israel in the 
distance, just as men are looking at the ordinances of the 
church, at the Lord's Supper ; going to prayer meeting, 
Bible class, Sunday school. My God, show these people 
that that is not Jesus. Oh, the souls that are looking there 
and dying, every one of them. Oh, my friends, would to 
God you could see that that is not the place to look. That 
is not life. Your father nor mother cannot save you. The 
ordinances of God cannot save you. Being baptized a 
thousand times cannot save you. There is another name 
given under the heavens, and that is Jesus. If you do not 
believe Jesus you are dying. 

There is another group. Ghastly fear is upon every face. 
They are going to die, every one of them. What are they 
doing? Looking steadfastly at Moses ; just as people to- 
day are looking at men — one at John Wesley ; another at 
Alexander Campbell ; another at somebody else — my pastor, 
my preacher, and following like sheep their guide. Oh, 
God, have mercy upon them, looking to Moses. Moses can- 
not save you. Take care how you pin your faith on the 
course of any human being. Moses cannot save you. He 
is not ordained of God to save ; but Jesus can. They are 
dying, every one. 

Another group is there, and they are dying. What is the 
matter with them ? They are all dying. Death is upon 
their faces. The serpents are actively biting them all. What 
are they doing ? They are fighting snakes — tearing them off 
their arms and face, and the snakes are biting just the same. 



LOOK Ais T D LIVE. 229 

Oh, how many men go to hell fighting their sins. How many 
men try to turn over a new leaf. How many a man tries to 
reform his life, and goes to hell ; yes, indeed, for that is an 
insult to Christ. That denies the blood ; refuses the only 
Saviour that God has appointed to the world. You may do 
it in one way just as well as in another, for Satan has traps 
laid for persons just according to their own particular failing. 
Some have a fondness for ordinances, and some have a fond- 
ness for men — hero worship. They are all fighting snakes, 
and it does no good. 

There is another group, and they are all well ; a fresh 
bloom is upon every cheek. The snakes are lying prone on 
the ground, helpless, paralyzed, not one doing its accursed 
work. They are looking right at the cross. 

Brother, Sister, look ! live ! 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 



[ist. Chronicles, xxii.] 

David and Solomon were types of the Lord Jesus, but 
types of him in different parts of his glorious salvation. 
Nothing could be more distinct and different than the reigns 
of these two kings, the one filled up with strife and blood- 
shed, that unfitted him to be the builder of the temple ; the 
other a reign of peace and rest, and glory. The reign of 
Solomon was the grandest, the most dazzling reign that 
there was among all the Hebrew kings. Silver and gold 
were as plentiful as the dust of the streets. The magnifi- 
cence of that wondrous reign has been not only the theme 
of Holy Writ, but of historians from that day to this. And 
so, dear friends, it needed just these two types to tell out 
the various wonders of Jesus, for David is a type of Jesus 
in his first coming, in his first advent, when he laid the 
foundation of his glorious empire in blood and suffering ; 
that was the sword of David clearing the way, laying the 
foundation deep and wide : for Solomon's reign would not 
have been possible but for the stalwart arm of David, and 
i he good sword of the giant Goliath, with which he cleaved 
his way to the kingdom, and by which he settled himself 
after he got through. So the reign of David is a type of 
Jesus in his first coming, while the reign of Solomon is a 
type of the Lord in his second coming, when his kingdom 
shall be set upon the earth, constituting the millennial glory 
of which we all have heard — the good time coming, is an 



THE LIVIKG TEMPLE. 231 

expression you have often heard. I wish therefore to call 
your attention more particularly to the building of Solo- 
mon's temple ; for in this reign of peace and glory occurred 
the erection of a building that has no equal, never has had 
an equal on the earth, and never will have, and is itself a 
type of what ? A type of the house of God not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. Solomon's temple was made 
with hands, but it was the type of the house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. Now, my friends, here was 
the grand thing that made Israel different from all nations 
in the world. It was not that they were victorious in battle; 
it was not that they had brave men and fair women in their 
midst. There have been nations of that kind all the world 
over, but there never was a nation outside of Israel that had 
God to dwell amongst them. That was the distinguishing 
feature of them as a nation from the time they came out 
from the land of Egypt ; it did not matter whether it was 
manifested in that little tabernacle with curtains in the 
wilderness that was portable, and could be carried about on 
the shoulders of a few men, or in the gorgeous temple of 
Solomon. In the one case it was a durable lesson ; in the 
other a temporary lesson, although the tabernacle was very 
grand — the grandest thing that ever went about the wilder- 
ness country. It matters not whether temporary, or perma- 
nent, the thing to be taught was just this same thing, that 
God Himself dwells with men. That was what made Israel 
the unique nation. There was none like that in the world. 
God dwelt in their midst , and, dear friends, that is going 
to be the everlasting glory of Israel, that God is going to 
dwell with them and be with them, as it is written 
in the 22nd chapter of Revelations, so you see the 
winding up of things as far as the dear Lord permits. 
So that you will find that the very last thing that was 



232 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

accomplished is this, that the tabernacle of God is with 
men. God shall be their God. He shall dwell with them, 
praise his dear name forever ; and this fact, dear friends, 
was not only emphasized in the old tabernacle in the wilder- 
ness, not only set up in glory in the temple of Solomon, but 
even down here in the midst of all wickedness ; this fact is 
emphasized in the Sacred Word, for, know you not brethren 
that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost. The 
meaning of the word temple is a place where God is, as 
your house is the place where you live. The temple is the 
place of God's residence, and God is just giving us the re- 
hearsal of this lesson on all suitable occasions. Just as 
soon as a man believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, that mo- 
ment God enters in and dwells in him. " Know you not 
that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, and that 
the spirit of God dwelleth in you ? u Now that is a fact in 
Christianity. That is a glorious fact. I am not talking 
about a pentecostal filling of the spirit ; that belongs to the 
higher life. We ought to be filled with the spirit to be sure, 
but I am directing your attention now, to the common heri- 
tage of the saints, and I do not want to go beyond that, the 
fact that God dwells in his meanest saint as well as in the 
best saint. The distinguishing characteristic of his life is 
that God dwells in him. There never was a man that be- 
lieved on the Lord Jesus Christ and confessed his name, 
but God took his residence from that moment, never to de- 
part, in that man ; and then when we are all gathered 
together, this lesson that has been taught in the individual 
shall be realized in the assembled church, for God shall 
dwell in that. Just as we are the house of God down here 
on earth so we saints shall be the house of God forever and 
ever, and the temple where he shall abide and dwell. His 
house is his dwelling place in the eternal ages, 



THE LIYIKG TEMPLE. 233 

exceeding magnifical of fame in all the generations 
that are to come ; just as Solomon's temple in which God 
resided, where he took up his abode, was exceedingly mag- 
nifical of fame in all generations, drawing such a one as that 
elect lady, the Queen of Sheba, from the uttermost parts of 
the earth to see the glory of that name that was in all coun- 
tries. It was the centre of the globe in its way, and so rich 
and magnificent that language fails to describe it as I want 
to show you. It is not simply to describe the temple of 
Solomon. All I do that for is to give you some idea of the 
glory of that, so you can make a stepping stone of it, and 
then go up to the glory of the upper temple. Whose temple 
are you ? Whose house are you ? Do you know the Holy 
Ghost abides in you that are to be the everlasting dwelling 
place of God, and more than this, God's magnificence is to 
be seen in the magnificence of that house that he lives in. 
According to a common lesson that we learn in daily life, a 
man's standing in society is told more plainly by the house 
that he lives in than anything else. Now I am speaking 
about the general lesson. I know that there are plenty of 
rich men that are too penurious to live in a good house, be- 
cause they want to accumulate vast sums of money, and they 
are poor miserable fools, and plenty of people that have got 
no money go to the opposite extreme and live out of all 
proportion to their means. I have been that kind of a fool 
myself. I was never rich, but I went up like a rocket, and 
came down like a stone. I have learned I am a fool, which 
is the first step towards being a wise man. Men that are 
stingy, and those that spend more than they are able to spend 
in making a figure above their station are exceptions. The 
general fact is this: A man's house tells what he is and 
where he is better than anything else. So that a poor man 
lives in a wooden structure, and especially if he is married. 



234 THE LIVING TEMPLE, 

If he gets a little better off he gets into a two story, and then 
when he gets a little more money he will have to build a 
brick ; and if his wife lives he will have to build a three 
story brick, and by-and-bye he will have to build a brown 
stone front. That is the way things go ; a man's wealth is 
told by the house he lives in. You pass along the street, 
and say, " Who lives in that house ?" " Mr. Smith, the 
banker." " I thought he must be some wealthy man, that 
is a very fine house," or, you say, "Mr. Jones, the manufac- 
turer," or "Mr. Robinson, the retired tailor," or "shoe- 
maker " if you like, but at any rate that house expresses the 
standing of that man. If it is a fine house he is a great man 
in the community. So God is going to do in the eternal 
ages. He is going to be known — His grandeur is chiefly go- 
ing to be known — not in the magnificence of his creation 
that spreads itself around us, but his grandeur is going to be 
everlastingly known by the glory of the house he is going to 
live in. Jesus Christ is going to be admired in all of them 
that believe in that day ; that is, he will put such magnifi- 
cence upon us that we shall reflect glory upon him. I am 
glad the dear Lord is going to use such poor worthless crea- 
tures as we are for his glory. He knows how to do it, and 
I am going to let him do that and rejoice in it. In the 
second chapter of Ephesians, we are represented as being 
built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets. 
Here is the common heritage of saints ; I am not talking 
about higher life saints, or bright particular stars, but the 
heritage of the saints. God does not dwell in some saints 
and not dwell in others. He dwells in all saints ; then he 
has bright particular saints. To be sealed with the spirit is 
one thing, and indwelt by the spirit is another thing. In 
the common heritage we are sealed, and then to be filled 
with that spirit is the heritage of those who choose to come, 






THE LIVING TEMPLE. 235 

and go on into the life more abundantly. Let us get down 
to the common heritage of the saints. We, " being built M 
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the build- 
ing fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in the 
Lord ; in whom (that is in Jesus) ye also are builded to- 
gether for a habitation of God through the spirit. " Praise 
the Lord." 

Then Peter brings that same idea out when he says 
"You being living stones " in contradistinction from dead 
stones of the temple, which was the mere type — " you being 
living stones, in the holy temple" — praise the Lord, that is 
enough. Out of the mouth of two witnesses everything shall 
be established. You do not want better witnesses than Paul 
and Peter. If you want any better you will have to go 
further. Now, when we have got the plain, simple declara- 
tion of the word of God, I stand on that. " I am a living 
stone in the temple of the living God ;" God signifying by 
his dwelling in me, that he is going to dwell in me forever. 
" He shall be in you and abide in you forever." This 
sweetly clinches the whole thing, eternity is written upon 
this lesson. That is all I want, God dwells in me now, God 
shall dwell in me forever. Oh, blessed, blessed God, give 
thy servant words to speak the glory of this blessed hope. 
Now, dear friends, in order to get out the spiritual, for God 
always gives us some external thing to put our feet 
upon as a sort of stepping stone, the thing which is seen re- 
veals the thing which is unseen ; as Paul says, " While we 
look on that thing which is seen" — you do not suppose Paul 
was merely going around the world with his eyes shut and 
was never noticing anything ? Bless your soul, he noticed 
every leaf, every drop of water, every bird thit sang ; there 
never was a more observing man in this world than Paul, 



236 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

but he did not stop at the thing which was seen ; he turned 
everything into Jesus Christ. The thing which is seen is 
temporal, and teaches a lesson, the thing, which is unseen is 
eternal, and I am robbing eternity every step I take, if I 
only see things that are going to perish But, thank God, he 
has given us these external lessons so we may learn blessed 
interior lessons of life, and see, " Books in the running 
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." When 
God once tells about this spiritual grandeur that shall over- 
take us one of these days, sets before us the temple of which 
the temple of Solomon is the shadow — that is the type of the 
glorious thing you are to be in the everlasting ages. Let 
us look at the type, in order that we may understand the 
antitype ; the thing seen, that we may gather some idea of 
the thing which is unseen. Praise the Lord that he has 
given us the particulars of this temple of Solomon. Jesus 
says, I, in my poverty, have prepared this temple ; just 
as our Jesus, in his humiliation and adversity, in his life and 
shame, and in his death of horror, laid the foundation wide 
and deep for all. But for David the temple would have 
been impossible. Solomon would not have had peaceful 
times to build it in. He would not have had the material 
wherewith to build it, but David, while he was conquering 
countries and cleaving his way to a grand throne, with his 
good sword, kept that steadily in his view, the one thing 
that was on his mind. He went to work preparing the ma- 
terial for the grand temple that should outshine every house 
that was ever built on the face of the earth. There was 
never one built like it ; never will be, for when Jesus comes 
there will be no need of a type, and away go all types. 

So, don't you imagine there will be a house in this 
world at all comparable to the house of Solomon. David 
went out in the time of poverty and gathered the material 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 237 

for building this temple, first gold, hundreds of thousands of 
talents. Go to any good commentary, and you will find 
that a talent of gold was equal to — I am not counting cents 
or a few dollars, but just in rough numbers you will find that 
a talent was $27,000. Then it is a mere matter of arith- 
metic. A hundred thousand times that made twenty-seven 
hundred millions of dollars and over. Think of that in gold 
that he put upon that one house — in the one single item of 
gold. David says so, and I believe every word that the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken. If you say it is impossible 
to collect that sum, then you fly right in the face of revela- 
tion. If you say that cannot be, you give God the lie, and 
you are a bolder man than I am. It is all true or it is all a 
lie ; and it is just as true that David collected a hundred 
thousand talents of gold as that Jesus Christ came into the 
world to save sinners. If one is a lie the other is, and if 
one is true the other is, and I trust the Lord. There is no 
marginal reading or anything else to make this at all obscure, 
as though some figure had been dropped out. When you 
try to make this less than it is you mar the grandeur, but 
you cannot mar the grandeur of the antitype. David 
gathered twenty-seven hundred millions of gold to put on 
this house. My dear friends, we never saw the one-hun- 
dredth part of that at one time in all our lives. Twenty- 
seven hundred million dollars of gold ; I think I can bring 
that home to your mind. Don't you have a visit from the 
sheriff every year with unfailing regularity ? And you only 
get rid of him by paying the taxes. You don't know what 
you are paying taxes for. I will tell you. You never heard 
of a nation getting out of debt, and you never will. America 
will be no exception. These politicians presenting you 
plans for paying the national debt is mere talk. They want 
to get in to steal something. That national debt will never 



238 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

be wiped out ; but you will be taxed and your sons will be 
taxed and your sons' sons will be taxed to pay the interest on 
the debt. When Jesus Christ comes he will find you paying 
taxes to the sheriff every year in order to pay the interest on 
the debt. They that dance must pay the piper, and people 
that will go to war must pay the soldiers. Remember what 
that debt is ; not that you are taxed for anything, but just 
taxed to keep the interest up. What is that debt ? It 
amounts to about twenty-three or four hundred million 
dollars, not by five thousand million dollars as much as the 
gold that went into that one building, Solomon's temple. 
Think of that tremendous national debt, and that does not 
come within five hundred millions in the one item of gold 
of the bullion that David collected to put in that one temple. 
He says, I will gather together a thousand thousand 
talents of silver. A talent of silver is three hundred and 
forty-two pound sterling ; multiply that amount and get it in 
dollars and cents, and you will find that a talent of 
silver is seventeen hundred dollars. A million times' that 
would be seventeen hundred and ten millions of dollars. 
Add your silver to your previous twenty-seven hundred 
millions of gold, and you are within a fraction of forty-five 
hundred millions of dollars of gold and silver, as David says. 
As for brass and iron, there is no numbering it, and as for 
stone there was no numbering, and no account kept ; and as 
for cedar of Lebanon, Solomon kept a hundred and fifty 
thousand men cutting steadily, I don't know how many 
months in order to get the wood, and bring it around by 
sea, and float it around by Joppa on rafts. There was no 
calculation of the money that was spent to do all that. Here 
we have two items, gold and silver, and all the rest left to 
your imagination. I cannot tell how much costly work 
there was about this temple. Forty-five hundred millions 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 239 

of dollars in these two items, twice the whole amount of the 
whole national debt in the simple items of gold and silver. 

Why does God give us all this figuring, this calculation ? 
He wants you to look at the thing that is seen, and then the 
thing that is unseen, the grander temple, shall be told out. 
This temple is eventually to be destroyed, but the temple 
that God is building, and in which he is going to live forever 
and forever, in which he is going to show his magnificence, 
how rich and great and glorious a God he is, will stand in 
the eternal ages. It is God's ambition to live in a fine house, 
and he is going to have his ambition fully satisfied by having 
such a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 
as will strike with terror in all the coming ages ; and you, 
my sister, my brother, are living stones in that dwelling 
house that God will abide in. Does it send up your pulse 
just one beat ? Does it ? I am afraid if I were to take hold 
of your pulse it would be beating just about the normal way. 
The fact that God can tell out these things in the imperfect 
way that I am telling you, and yet the pulse not go up half 
a beat, shows how dull we are. Could not Jesus come to- 
night into this assembly, and say to it, w Fools, slow of heart 
to believe all that the Scriptures have told ?" Couldn't he 
say that ? Let us look at it, and look at it until our hearts 
do go up a beat. Here is this gold and silver. The fact 
seems to be that the temple was built in this way. It was 
built of stone ; and I want to show you what these stones 
were directly, because we have got the measurement of them; 
got the way in which they were made — great stones and 
costly stones. These stones were laid one upon another, 
and then the costly cedar of Lebanon, not simply planed, 
but carved with all the delicate skill of the finest manipula- 
tors cf that day — carved by men who were inspired, perhaps, 
by God to do the blessed work Bezaleel was in the olden 



240 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

times, for remember, in those times these working men had 
heavenly skill, could carve the most delicate tracery ; nice 
flowers, pomegranates, lilies, and most beautiful designs or- 
namented in this costly cedar wood, that covered all the 
stone so that you never saw a stone. There was not a stone 
visible in all the gorgeous temple of Solomon. Then outside 
of that solid plates of silver, that consumed seventeen hun- 
dred and ten millions of dollars of silver ; and then over 
that great thick plates of gold — thick enough to consume 
twenty-seven hundred millions of gold that we know of. 
Think of what a magnificent man he was, what a grand king 
he was. You may be sure he had authority. I will just take 
the figures. I will not take anything that I do not absolutely 
know. It is certain that Solomon did add to its magnifi- 
cence, but take the naked figures. There was simply stones 
laid one on top of another, and then over that the fine cedar 
wood, and then over that the silver and then the gold. First, 
the silver, which, if I am right, represents that which is com- 
municable of the blessed Jesus, for we are partakers of the 
divine nature as well as the human. So Peter tells us there 
is something of the divine that God can communicate to us. 
We are covered up, as it were, in fine gold, which is the 
communicable tabernacle of divinity. When we hear of these 
grand stones, which are never seen — that is what they are, 
grand and magnificent even in themselves. They are com- 
pletely covered up, for you never saw a sign of a stone 
without or within. Do not think this magnificence is not 
within as well as without. The stones covered with costly 
cedar wood covered with magnificent plates of silver, all in- 
dented and deeply carved just as the wood was, and then 
covered over with these thick plates of gold still presenting 
that magnificent appearance that it did in the cedar wood — 
one over the other ; outside and in, nothing but flashing gold, 



THE LIVIXG TEMPLE. 241 

fine gold — the gold of Ophir. Praise the Lord for that. 
That is what we are going to be. You never saw such a 
house. You never heard of but one place, there never has 
been but one place in this world so grand. Succeeding mon- 
archs, whenever their exchequer was low, all they had to do 
was to go up to Jerusalem and chip off enough gold and silver 
to make them rich beyond their fathers, and perhaps for 
nearly a century these raids were made by these monarchs, 
robbing the temple of Jerusalem of all they could carry off. 
That was the occupation of kings for centuries. That is just 
how magnificent it was ; and the reason it was made so 
grand, and why expense was not spared was, that it was a 
type of the house that God was to live in in eternity. It 
must needs be magnifical, says David. I like that old Eng- 
lish word. It has got more meaning in it than magnificent. 
This house must be exceeding magnifical of fame in all king- 
doms, in all countries. Oh, gracious God, that the time 
might speedily come when that house should be furnished, 
when the scaffolding shall be taken down, when the glorious 
temple in which God shall find his resting place forever might 
be finished ! Oh, the glory of that house ! Oh, the gran- 
deur of it ! Oh, the exceeding magnifical of fame in all the 
eternal ages ! There never was anything like that temple of 
Jerusalem in this world, never will be, and let me tell you 
that you and I shall belong to the structure up yonder, the 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, the like 
of which can never be seen in all the eternity of God, and 
all the universe of God. Don't that satisfy you ? Does your 
pulse go up a single beat ? to get you where you would not 
grovel ? Gracious God, to think that one of these living 
stones in this glorious temple will go and grovel, and burrow 
just like a mole, away from the shining bright sun. It is as 
if the salvation of God had broken out, and the fool moles 



242 THE LIVIKG TEMPLE. 

would grovel and grovel and burrow and burrow instead of 
going out into the light and glory. 

Great stones, costly stones, David set masons to hew 
wrought stones, remember that. How large were they ? 
Let the books tell us. Go back to the ist Kings, 7th chap- 
ter, and there you will find that these stones were stones of 
eight and ten cubits. Now, when God says length, breadth 
and height, he is always particular to give it, the length of 
it, the breadth of it, and the thickness of it was given. God 
is very particular in giving the right measure. So when he 
says stones of eight and ten cubits, he means eight and ten 
cubits square. The measure of a cubit used to be consid- 
ered eighteen inches, but recent measurements have shown 
that a cubit is a little above twenty-five inches or two feet. 
Then here is a stone of ten cubits, which means twenty feet 
square. Not a stone twenty feet long and about four or 
five feet high, but twenty feet each way. Those are the 
great stones, those are the costly stones. Ah, my friends, 
it was wonderful. What in the world did they take so 
much trouble for ? Why didn't they take little stones ? It 
would all come to the same thing as far as the consolidated 
structure was concerned. Nobody ever thinks of cutting 
out such stones as that. Ah, my friends, God did not spare 
expense in that temple. God intended to represent these 
grand and glorious facts that we are living stones within that. 
Brother, look at that, living stones to be built up in this glo- 
rious temple that God is to dwell in forever. You see you 
are covered with a glorious cedar wood, covered with gold, 
but then you are costly stones, great stones. Think of the 
trouble in order get these stones out of the pit. Does that 
not bring back what it cost to save you ? Does not that 
bring back Calvary. I verily believe that Isaiah has 
reference to that when he says, " Look to the hole of the pit 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 243 

whence you are digged." You can always get a better idea 
how large a thing is by looking into the cavity from which it 
has been taken, than by the solid substance itself. Look at 
this hole of the pit from which we are digged. They had 
to first smooth off the top a little, to cut down twenty feet, 
then saw down twenty feet each side of it, and then under- 
neath. How they ever got it out nobody knows. There is 
not a hoisting apparatus in the world that we are familiar 
with, that would take out such a stone as that. Think of 
the power that was necessary to lift those great stones, 
twenty feet square, the like of which the world has never 
seen, and never will see. And then, dear friends, these 
stones were all arranged at the quarry, all squared, sawed, 
hammered and chipped and chiseled so exactly, that when 
they were laid up into this gorgeous structure, there was 
neither sign of hammer, saw or chisel, or any tool of man in 
the building. Don't you see what a lesson this teaches. 
That is what I am doing to-night ; I am cutting out the 
stone out of the quarry. I am a workman under God's own 
directions; and if you and I knew all the secret histories, we 
would find there was a spiritual history going alongside of 
this earthly history, God chiseling, sawing and hammering 
trying to fit you as glorious stones for this temple; that is 
what he wants you to be. But remember this, after the 
preacher has done all that he can, has presented the truth, 
whenever this stone is to be lifted into the temple, God does 
that himself. There is no sign of human tool. I can tell 
you his words, and their sweet hidden meaning, but after 
that is all done, then, my friend, it is you and God for it ; 
and when you are laid up in the temple of the living God, 
then God comes, and the preacher stands aside. I can not 
bring you there ; I can do nothing but persuade you to let 
God lift you there, and after awhile, when you get to that 



244 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

point where you say, "I will let God do his work ; I will 
let Jesus save me ; then, brother, there is no more sign of a 
human tool. I stand back. Everybody stands back ; and 
God by his almighty power elevates you, puts you in your 
place, and there you are for good, a perfect stone. You do 
not need to be chipped after that ; do not need to be made 
fit. There is plenty of adorning afterwards, plenty of work, 
but remember a stone laid in its place had to be laid with- 
out the sign of a chisel, or saw or hammer. Remember the 
blood of Jesus makes you perfectly fit to be a living stone 
in the temple of the living God. You may have just as 
much ornament put on you as you please after that. 

So when I come and take Jesus as my Saviour I am fitted 
that instant to be sealed by the Holy Spirit — as long as I be- 
have myself ? Not at all — until the day of redemption. 
That is the sine qua non. After you believe you are sealed 
by the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve him. Why ? Because 
he may l^ave you ? No ; he is to abide with you forever . 
but grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. By him you are 
sealed unto the day of redemption. That takes you to 
heaven, praise the Lord for that. These glorious stones, 
these great stones, these costly stones — how much it cost to 
fit them for their place, how much it cost to lift them there, 
you and I will never know " till we stand with Christ in 
glory, looking over life's finished story." Then shall w r e 
fully know, not till then how much we owe. I am so glad 
that the hours of this dullness are passing so swiftly. I am 
so glad that soon I shall know even as I am known ; that I 
can tell out with an unstammering tongue- the praise of 
Jesus who has bought me with his precious blood. Remem- 
ber that you are to go into the temple. This grand temple, 
dear friends is going up to night. It is nearly completed, 
but let me tell you, soon the top stone will be brought forth. 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 245 

The top stone remember ; that is Jesus Christ, the chief 
corner stone, praise the Lord for his precious love. It is a 
temple built by Christ ; it is to be a dwelling-place of God, 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, brother, what a 
glorious dwelling place it will be: 

Let me remind you that this temple was built upon the 
margin of a dreadful precipice. Josephus tells us that there 
were six hundred feet of sheer descent from Solomon's porch 
right down into the valley of Jehosaphat. They could have 
very easily set the temple back, so as not to have gone to 
that fearful expense. No ; God set it right on the edge by 
commandment, and made them build up the wall from the 
valley below, six hundred feet. One hundred and fifty feet 
is a good height for a tall steeple. Now, pile up four such 
steeples and you have got an idea of the precipice. Four 
times the height of a tall steeple was built up by solid ma- 
sonry, dove-tailed into the very structure, and held by deli- 
cate joining, so that when you came to look over in that 
glorious porch of Solomon you beheld that sheer descent, 
six hundred feet, a bottomless abyss almost. My brother, 
God ordered that so just to teach us the lesson of this new 
temple that he is going to dwell in forever. It is built upon 
the margin of a fearful precipice that cannot be crossed. 
As Abraham said to the rich man, "Between us and you 
there is a great gulf fixed ; so that they which would pass 
from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that 
would come from hence." God's temple will be of living 
stones, made so by the blessed blood of Jesus. We will 
always be known as those who are saved with the blood. 
Our sign should be as those who are washed from sins by 
the precious blood. I thank my God this glorious temple 
is built upon the margin of this tremendous precipice. That 
was built on one of the margins of Moriah. The word 



246 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

Moriah in Hebrew means the bitterness of God, and it has 
another meaning, chosen of God. It means when it comes 
to the cross, the cross that was chosen of God. That place 
of suffering was the chosen place of God. God so loved the 
world that he sent his son for one object, that was to die to 
save poor sinners. Moriah was a chosen place, but also a 
place of bitterness, for on that fearful, fatal spot came that 
awful cry which ran through the ages, yes, and will ring 
through the eternal ages, for it is the centre of all the glory 
that is to be revealed from God, " Why hast thou forsaken 
me?" Why ? I will tell you, dear Jesus, in order that he 
might never forsake me. That is it. He bore it a little 
while that the father might never forsake me, might never 
turn away from me with a frown as black as hell. I can give 
the answer in my poor way. " My God, why hast thou for- 
saken me." It was the bitterness of God. Moriah, that is a 
name of evil import in the Eastern countries to-day. It is 
a name of terror. I remember when my first-born was given 
into the hands of the nurse I had called her Maria, after her 
grandmother, my mother ; and when I put her into the 
hands of the nurse and told her what the child's name was 
she almost let her drop, and says " don't ask me to call her 
that." Said I, " call her what you choose." She said "I 
will call her Marie, but not Maria." " Something unhappy 
and miserable will happen to her; don't call her that." 
That was the idea of the Moriah ; for all those words are 
cognate. The word Maria is a name of terror in the East to 
this day, a name of ill-omen, a name of horrible import. 
That is the way she got the name of Marie. It is not a cor- 
ruption of the French name Marie. It is Marie because her 
native nurse gave her that name because she would not call 
her Maria, that awful name, that terrible word so full of ill 
import to this very day in all Eastern countries. You may 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 247 

ask me, where did all these great stones come from? Recent 
travelers have made a discovery, down underneath the 
foundation of Jerusalem caverns have been discovered as 
vast as the catacombs under the City of Imperial Rome. 
There are in these caverns stones with the mark of Solo- 
mon's saw and chisel and hammer on them marked out of 
the dimensions called for in the Scriptures, and with the saw 
and chisel and hammer marks on them. Have these any 
meaning ? I pray God they may never have a meaning for 
your soul. Oh, friends, what I have said will leave its mark 
on many. The marks of this sermon will be upon thousands 
perhaps, who never heard my voice. God's mark of his saw, 
of his hammer, of his chisel, they are upon you and will be 
forever and forever. But I want to ask you this question, 
will you be everlasting blocks in the cavern of eternal dark- 
ness that God tried to save you from ? Will you bear his 
chisel and saw marks on you forever and forever down in 
this dark gloomy cavern, or will you be a living stone, lifted 
out of the darkness, out of the pit ? I declare to you in the 
name of my God who has sent me to speak to you, that 
solemn question can only be answered by yourself. Will 
you let God put you in his temple, or be an everlasting wit- 
ness of his attempt to do what he failed to do ? God have 
mercy. Oh, may his word strike into your heart the answer 
to that question. 



THE BRAZEN SEA. 



[2d Chronicles, iv.] 

In an endless variety of ways, dear friends, the Lord sets 
forth the fulness of Jesus Christ in his glorious work. All 
Scripture is taken up, if we get at the interior meaning of it, 
with explaining what a precious Saviour Jesus Christ is, and 
how perfectly adapted he is to all our wants ; how he meets 
us at every point ; you cannot raise a single question but 
what he answers it; you cannot get in any place but what his 
faithful love has been there before you, and you find that in 
himself is the answer of every difficulty ; the Scripture, in 
every part of it, makes manifest what is the fulness and the 
glorious excellency of our Redeemer. I want to look at him, 
and to speak of him at the present from the standpoint of 
the brazen sea in Solomon's Temple. Our last discourse 
was the temple itself. I want now to speak to you about 
the brazen sea which corresponded with the brazen laver of 
the wilderness, for whether it is a portable or permanent 
thing it sets forth the precious moral of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The tabernacle in the wilderness taught the same 
truth, precisely, as the gorgeous temple of Solomon. 

The articles of furniture in the tabernacle were the same 
identically with those in the temple. I want you to notice, 
dear friends, that whether in the portable or in the permanent 
form, whether it was a brazen sea that could.be carried 
about on the shoulders of two men, or whether it was a 



THE BRAZEK SEA. 249 

brazen laver that could be borne by two men, or a brazen 
sea that was ten cubits in diameter, thirty cubits compassing 
it round about, and set upon twelve huge oxen, and holding 
three thousand baths, why the lesson was just the same, and 
that is the lesson I desire to bring to your notice as the Lord 
shall unfold it to me. There is something of infinite im- 
portance from every standpoint of looking at the dear Jesus, 
there is always something that meets our wants. We can- 
not afford to pass any of it over. We cannot afford to lose 
any of the fulness that there is in Jesus Christ for us. 

Now, just in the beginning, dear friends, I want you to 
notice how often the number four, the image of complete- 
ness, comes before us in the Scripture. It opens up with 
four rivers that run out of Eden. You know there was one 
river and it divided into four heads, that is the river, the 
Lord Jesus Christ, those four heads are the four character- 
istic features of his blessed salvation. It would be easy 
to show how the first corresponded to the gospel of Mat- 
thew, the second to Mark, the third to Luke, and the fourth 
to John — those four rivers that ran out of Eden, just as 
these four things in the tabernacle in the wilderness answered 
to exactly the same thing. There was the brazen altar, 
there was the brazen laver, there was the holy place, and 
there was the most holy, still answering to the four-fold 
character of the Blessed Saviour, as the Lord in Matthew, in 
Mark, in Luke, in John, the four living creatures, the one with 
a head of a lion or Matthew, the other with the head of an ox, 
or Mark, the other with the head of a man, or Luke, the other 
with a head of a flying eagle, or John. Elsewhere I have 
explained their meaning, corresponding to the four quarters 
of the compass, the cardinal points, north, south, east and 
west which go around the entire circuit. I want you to 
notice, dear friends, this fourfold arrangement, this expres- 



250 THE BRAZEN SEA, 

sion of completeness in the number four, as the number seven 
or eight or three in their varied places are full of the blessed 
hidden meaning of the wisdom of God. God makes a great 
deal of numbers ; that is the reason I make a great deal of 
them. I want to make a great deal of what God makes a 
great deal of. When he does not mention a thing I do not 
want to speak of it at all. I want to learn to love everything 
that God loves, and hate everything that God hates, that is 
the one ambition of my life ; and when I find my blessed 
God paying very special attention to numbers, and giving a 
divine significance to them, then, dear friends, I love to study 
the subject ; and when I bring this number four before you, 
the number of completeness, the incarnation, and show you 
how it all goes through the scripture, and now as we come 
to this mysterious tabernacle, this curtained space in the 
wilderness, or come to the gorgeous temple of Solomon and 
its enclosures, in both of them you find the same order of 
things ; you find first when you lift that mysterious curtain 
of the tabernacle in the wilderness, the first thing that you 
see is the brazen altar, and that altar tells us of the bleeding 
lamb, a lamb with his blood sprinkled about the altar, the 
form, the legs, the appurtenances, everything upon the altar, 
the whole burnt offering ; that is the first thing you see. 
That is our Jesus in one aspect of his glorious work. Then 
you go on and the next thing you see is a laver, or as in 
Solomon's Temple, the brazen sea, portable in one case, and 
permanent and huge in the other, but meaning the same 
thing. In that brazen sea are two thousand baths of water. 
The capacity of it is three thousand baths, as you find by 
comparing Kings and Chronicles, though two thousand was 
the largest amount that ever could possibly be needed. Even 
in the gorgeous work of Solomon two thousand was the out- 
side extent of the baths that were used, thus testifying of the 



THE BKAZEN SEA. 251 

capacity of Jesus, dear friends, in that aspect — of the capac- 
ity of our Savior, that it far exceeds all possible use that can 
be made of him. I need not say that infidelity has taken up 
this, the mention of two thousand baths in one book and 
three thousand in the other — poor shallow infidelity has 
taken it up and called it a discrepancy, as if God did not 
know his own mind in writing two books without contradict- 
ing himself. Blind unbelief, so sure, so knowing always, 
is not afraid to take up the blessed God and say he is not 
able to write a book, and not cross his path from one section 
to the other ; but dear friends, when you get the meaning of 
it, there is no discrepancy at all. On the contrary, one of 
the sweetest lessons in the whole book is taught there, that 
Christ's capacity far exceeds the greatest possible use that 
is ever made of him. The thing held three thousand baths, 
though in actual use it simply contained two thousand, for 
only two thousand were needed. 

We proceed to this second institution, or brazen laver or 
brazen sea. In that, my friends, was water. That corres- 
ponds to the gospel according to St. Mark, as the brazen al- 
tar corresponds to the gospel according to St. Matthew. 
Then you go on and find the holy place on the right hand, 
and table of shewbread, in the centre the golden altar from 
which the incense (this odor of sweet smelling savor to the 
Lord) rose continually, on the left the golden candlesticks, 
with their light never going out, thus testifying to the blessed 
Word, the blessed light of the spirit that never goes out, and 
the blessed incense that goes up a continual offering to the 
Lord, an offer of sweet smelling savor unto the Lord. Then 
you lift another curtain and come to the fourth department. 
The third or the holy place corresponds to Luke or the 
special book of fellowship and friendship of Jesus, as he was 
the son of man. Then you lift another curtain, and into 



252 THE BRAZEN SEA. 

the holiest of all you come, where God's sweet presence 
never goes out, where you are in the presence of the Lord, 
where it is not lawful for all priests to come. 

Oh, the fellowship there was the sweetest, the best, the 
purest of them all, so you have this corresponding to the 
sacred gospel according to St. John, and the fullest joy that 
the human soul can have down here on earth. Everything 
progressing, you see, from the blood that begins it, the water 
which is in the second place, the candlestick and the golden 
altar of incense and the table of shew-bread, the sweet and 
holy fellowship as the third department, to the fourth, the per- 
petual presence of the Lord, where the married soul is no 
longer twain with God, but these twain are one — no longer 
twain but one, and the two lives flow forever in the same 
channel, and sweet secrets are there from one to the other 
that it is not lawful for any other to hear, the sacred secrets 
of the marital relation, the sweetest that earth can know, 
the nearest that even a man can have on earth ; of which 
thing, as Paul says, I have not time now to speak particu- 
larly, even if I had the light and grace to do it. Let us go 
back to the second department. The thing that constituted 
the man a priest was blood. When that blood was put upon 
him he was a priest, that is to say, the blood and the oil 
together. 

That constituted them priests unto God forever. We are 
all priests, my friends, ordained to offer unto God spiritual 
sacrifices acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord ; so Peter says in his blessed epistle. I don't care if it 
is only a child born an hour ; I don't care if it is a little 
five year old that says, " Now I lay me down to sleep," a 
real believer in Jesus is a priest, and, my friends, often- 
times a better priest than one of those Christians that do 
not know how to believe. In the sweet and blessed security 



THE BKAZEN SEA. 253 

of love in its little heart, it just lies down so sweetly, safe in 
a sure enough Jesus, and believes that there is a loving 
Savior that lives to take care of little children, coming to 
take them up in his arms and bless them. Ah, my friends, 
that is a more real thing than merely saying prayers. I do 
not raise that question at all, but just advert to it in passing. 
We are all priests ordained to offer spiritual gifts and sacri- 
fices acceptable to God ; that is to say, the blood makes us 
priests, and the oil makes us priests. The man that comes 
to Christ Jesus confesses that ; this is the application of the 
blood. After that you believe you are sealed by the Holy 
Spirit of promise. Instantly, the moment you believe, he 
puts his seal upon you, saying to man and devil, that is my 
property, do not lay your hands upon it ; that belongs to 
me forever and ever ; there is my seal, there is the earnest 
of inheritance until the redemption of the purchased pos- 
session. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise unto 
the day of redemption ; not as long as we behave ourselves 
— perish such a thought ; I despise it ; not sealed as long as 
you behave yourself ; there is not a word of Scripture — I 
dare you to find it — where the Holy Ghost once comes into 
a sinner and ever leaves him. He shall abide with you for- 
ever. Christ writes eternity upon this gift of God ; and the 
gift of God and his calling is beyond the change of mind. I 
am so glad of that. You may change your mind fifty times 
a day, God will not change his. You may be unfaithful as 
you can be, but God is not faithless. You cannot deny this. 
When he says he will do a thing there is no depending upon 
your goodness at all, there is depending on his and upon 
Christ's goodness, and he is going to keep his word. I do 
not care if you are as bad as the devil wants you to be. 
You ought not to be, and it is an outrage and shame if you 
are. 



254 THE BKAZEN SEA. 

The question has often been put to me : " Now, Brother 
Barnes, suppose a poor soul comes and confesses the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and goes away and serves the devil right 
straight along, and dies serving the devil?" That is a very- 
mean supposition. I never heard a man or woman suppose 
anything good of God in my life ; " Dem s'poses is what 
makes you miserable," as the old colored woman says. Do 
you know why you are always supposing something mean ? 
If you love the Lord, why don't you say, " Suppose he does 
right, suppose he lives all right and dies all right ;" but they 
always suppose the other side, suppose they do not do right. 
If you are mean enough to suppose that, I am good enough 
to take you right on that supposition, though such a case 
was never heard of of a man confessing Jesus and serving 
the devil right straight along, and dying serving the devil. 
I say it is a downright case of meanness to suppose such a 
thing, because it bears down on the good God ; but, sup- 
posing such a thing occurs, I say " yes," a thousand times 
yes. You are not saved because you are good ; you are 
saved because you are as bad as the devil would have you ; 
saved because you are nothing but a bundle of sins, and 
God is not going to unsave you, and if he saves you because 
you are full of sins, if you have done any good thing, he is 
not going to damn you for any such thing as that. There 
is no Scripture for any such thing. Let us not have any 
such suppositions in our hearts ; let us suppose that a man 
will do what is right, and if he should do something wrong 
let us have charity enough to suppose that the good God, 
knowing what he would do and had done, and that Jesus 
Christ had paid for all his sins, past present, and future, that 
the good God has power enough, and Jesus's blood has 
efficacy enough to save the poor creature, even though he 
goes along and serves the devil. He will not have a crown. 



THE BRAZEJST SEA. 255 

God cannot commit principalities to any such persons as 
that, but he is saved by the precious blood of Jesus. That 
is what the blood and the oil do. The moment you confess 
him who shed the blood you are saved, and saved forever, 
because he promises to give you eternal life when you do 
that ; and if it is life that only last ten years or as long as I 
behave myself, it is not eternal life. God is not going to be 
guilty of any such meanness. When God says " eternal life 
I give to you," he does not mean eternal life that will come 
to an end in twenty or forty years, but eternal life that will 
never come to an end, because he gives you the life of 
Jesus Christ for the blood's sake. He died that you and I 
might live, and because he lives I will also. 

The only way to get goodness of heart is to believe. If 
you find these people that are always afraid that the good 
God will damn them after all, that he will spring out of am- 
bush upon them, you will find they will always be penitent, 
and will not have leisure to serve the Lord. I know lots of 
high life people that are living in the Lord, and consecrated 
to him, that think they believe all that stuff, but they do 
not do it. They are just as certain to be saved as I am, but 
the fact is, they do not believe that. They think they be- 
lieve it, but they do not believe a word of it. Methodist, 
Campbellite, Presbyterian or Roman Catholic, if your heart 
is true to God you will never be afraid of being damned ; 
but if there is a possibility of being damned you ought to 
be afraid. The reason I am not afraid is because there is 
no possibility of it. I want my head to correspond with my 
heart. The heart rides rough shod over the head, and puts 
it out of court. " Blessed are the pure in heart," not the 
clear in head. I know some Christians I have met with 
that are pure in heart and not clear in head. 

Salvation, full, free and abiding, through the blood, has 



256 THE BKAZEK SEA. 

such an attractive power for me that I love to dwell on the 
theme ; but let us get to the water, for I believe in water 
salvation just as much as I believe in blood salvation. 
Water saves just as much as blood saves. " I saw a soldier 
pierce his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and 
water" — not blood and water mingled — that is the way 
these people think they believe in baptism for the remission 
of sins ; they have got the blood and water mingled, that 
is not the way the Lord says it in the Scripture. Blood 
first, there it is ; water second, there it is ; and the one is 
just as important as the other in its place, my friends, and 
God never mixes them together. Here is the blood that 
flows and cleanses a sinneu* from all sin, and there is the 
water in that laver that cleanses a saint from all sin ; praise 
the Lord, and there is a difference between cleansing a sin- 
ner from all sin and cleansing a saint from all sin. The sea 
was for the priests to wash in, that is what it is for. It was 
not to constitute them priests, but it was to keep them clean 
after they were priests, a salvation that came by water and 
by blood, not by water only, no, no ; but by water and by 
blood. The Lord knew what heresies would come into his 
church, so he has nailed them to the counter by this sweet 
and blessed clause, bringing the two together, and yet sepa- 
rating them so that all hell cannot mingle them together, 
praise the Lord. The blood and the water, the blood that 
cleanses a sinner from all sin ; yonder is the cross of your 
Savior ; the blood that cleanses a sinner from all sin. But 
here is a sinner, dear friends, that comes out and confesses 
Jesus Christ now, and to-morrow he may have just as bad a 
temper as he has to-day ; that is a case in point, for I will 
venture to say that in every church organization there 
are some bad tempered Christians. I would not dare to 
speculate upon the average percentage of bad-tempered 



THE BEAZEN SEA. 257 

Christians in every church, but there are Christians whose 
names have appeared on the Church register for forty years, 
whose tempers are as bad to-day as when they first pro- 
fessed faith in Jesus Christ, if not a little worse. I carried 
a hateful temper for thirty-five years. Thank God I have 
got rid of it now, and a man that has had a temper like that 
for thirty-five years knows when he gets rid of it. I found 
what the water was five years and a half ago. The blood 
cannot cure your temper. It can do some things, but, my 
friends, when it comes to the saint, the blood has done its 
work, and done it well ; oh, so well. I believe better than 
many believe on that subject. The blood has done its 
work so well that the sinner is saved forever. For a sinner's 
salvation you have the blood and the blood alone ; but the 
saint's salvation is in the water and the water alone, for the 
blood, being once applied, is applied no more. One appli- 
cation of the blood is forever sufficient* By one offering he 
hath forever perfected them that believe. I believe in one 
application of the blood. I do not believe in making Jesus 
Christ's blood like the blood of the bull and goat that has 
to be poured or sprinkled on a man again and again. No, 
no, the blood in its place, the water in its place. What 
constitutes me a priest once and forever ? It is the blood. 
What keeps me clean ? That is the water. Suppose a 
priest were to defile his feet, would he go back to the altar 
to be cleansed with the blood ? I know we have got a good 
deal of that in our hymnology, but the Bible must have the 
precedence of the hymn book. We have preachers — and I 
do not deny their merit, but they have a wrong theology — 
who teach a second application of the blood, There is no 
Scripture for such theology. The second application 
of the blood of Jesus Christ is nowhere taught in the 
Bible ; it is applied once and forever, it perfects 



258 THE BEAZEK SEA. 

them who are sanctified. Then how do you get 
the saint's sanctification. There is a double sanctification. 
There is the sinner's sanctification, but that cannot change 
your bad temper — sanctified, yes. How ? Sanctified by 
the blood. What, that man that loves whiskey, is he sancti- 
fied ? Yes, sanctified by the blood, for Christ has by one 
offering forever perfected them who are sanctified. If you 
do not know that there are two sanctifications in the Bible, 
let me now assure you of the fact. There are two sanctifi- 
cations, just as there is the sinner's eternal life and the 
saint's eternal life ; just as there is the justification of the 
sinner by faith, and the justification of the saint by works; 
just as there is the kingdom of God for a sinner, that he is 
born into, and the kingdom that the saint must hold on to 
the plow handles in order to get ; just as there is the sin- 
ner's offering and the saint's offering; and this divine 
duality goes through the Bible. There is the sinner's 
sanctification, which is by the blood and the spirit, and the 
saint's sanctification, which is by the water and the spirit. 
I want you to get back to the naked word of God, for you 
have read your Bibles in a measure in vain if you have not 
discovered this double salvation. So I believe in the sin- 
ner's eternal life, and I believe in the saint's change of 
heart. I believe in it because it is an actual experience. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Yes, 
indeed. Jesus is not going to be in heaven and leave me 
behind. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. I 
am holy, praise the Lord, and I claim it, not by any pre- 
sumption, oh, no, but through the dear, dear, holy love of 
my Lord Jesus Christ — my Lord Jesus Christ accepted in 
his second glorious character — Christ of the water. Ah, 
my friends, I know that Christ not only saves me in my 
sins, but he saves me from my sins. Through the blood I 



THE BKAZEN SEA. 259 

am saved in my sins. I was a saved man with a bad tem- 
per ; I was a saved man, yet chewing tobacco ; I was a 
saved man with unholy ambition in me. If I attempted to 
go over and count the devil's spawn that was in me, I 
should weary you with the catalogue, but I was saved all 
the same, saved by the precious blood ; but then, my 
friends, I needed a second salvation. What was that ? 
That was, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, my Saviour, 
because he shall save his people from their sins." By this 
second salvation I am saved from the power of these impe- 
rious lusts, saved from my temper, saved from my bad 
habits, a clean Christian, pure in heart and pure in life ; 
but I do not get that by the blood, my friends. No, no ; I 
got that by the water. Not by water only, of course. You 
cannot be a sanctified man until you are a saved man. One 
is bound to follow the other, and can never go before the 
other. Not by water only, but by water and by blood ; the 
blood saving a sinner, and saving him everlastingly and 
entirely, and then the water saving a saint, and saving 
him completely. This is exactly God's provision for you, 
my friends. Many stumble when they get into the higher 
life, because they are in a muddle about the blood and the 
water, just mixed up on this very question ; but keep in 
mind that the blood everlastingly cleanses the sinner, and 
has got nothing to do with the saint ; as a saint he passes 
into another department, as the priest, when he needs 
cleansing, never goes back to the blood, though he may be 
as vile as Judas. Ananias and Sapphira were saints of 
the Lord, and yet did a thing that is common in the church. 
My friends, if every Christian was killed in the church for 
the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, giving God the whole, 
apparently, and holding back a part of it, there would 
not be enough living ones left to bury the dead ones. 



260 THE BKAZEK SEA, 

The consecration of property to God is the rarest thing 
in the church. If Ananias and Sapphira go to hell, then 
what a mighty gathering there will be from the churches ; 
but, praise God, hell has got nothing to do with Ananias 
and Sapphira. When a saint does so mean a thing as 
that it gives a chance for the devil to come in and kill 
him, and he will do it ; and that is the case now, as it 
was then, very often, dear friends. 

Let us get back to this blessed brazen laver in which the 
priests washed — the laver with water in it. Here you see the 
significancy of baptism. It was a glorious discovery to me 
when I first saw its true meaning, that it had no more to do 
with the sinner than it had with the man in the moon, that 
it had no connection with the sinner. To suppose that it is 
an initiatory rite is a falsehood which the devil has hoisted 
upon the church. It does not admit you to Jesus Christ as 
Savior at all ; it has got nothing to do with the sinner at all. 
He is saved just as the thief on the cross was by the blood 
of Jesus Christ. He was not baptised, and yet went that 
day with Jesus into paradise, thus signifying that the water 
was not required to save a sinner, but was required to save 
a saint. I believe in baptism, for I believe in salvation by 
water just as I believe in salvation by blood. I will defy you 
to do one thing, and that is to find one place, one text in 
the Scripture where baptism is not put in connection with 
the fullness of the spirit ; not being sealed by the spirit, not 
at all, for after that you believed you were sealed by the 
Holy Spirit ; but after that you are baptised, if you know 
what you are doing, you are filled with the spirit, and I defy 
you to point to any text in the scripture where a man was 
sealed and not saved. To be filled with the spirit is the 
saints' right who have been baptised in water. Let us see 
how that comes out. What about Jesus when he was bap- 



THE BRAZEN SEA. 261 

tised. The Spirit had sealed him. He was sealed before 
that certainly, but now came the fullness of the Spirit, 
" This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." But 
Jesus, being filled with the Spirit, immediately went and was 
tempted by the devil, praise the dear Lord, filled from the 
very moment, thus identifying baptism with the fullness of 
the Spirit. So you will find it always. Peter baptised three 
thousand on the day of Pentecost. Repent, change your 
mind, that is salvation ; repentance is unto salvation, re- 
pentance is unto life, according to the Scripture ; repentance 
toward God settles the sinner's question. Repent and be bap- 
tised — here are two things ; be baptised every one of you 
into the name of Jesus Christ, and ye shall receive the Holy 
Ghost. That followed baptism. Remission of sins follows 
repentance. Repent and be converted that your sins may 
be blotted out; certainly, then the most refreshing part will 
come when the Holy Spirit comes down and fills you full as 
it did the disciples on the day of Pentecost when the baptism 
of the Spirit follows the baptism by water ; that is the saint's 
cleansing ; that is no initiatory rite in the Christian church; 
it is not before salvation. In its true significancy it repre- 
sents the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit by which we are 
fitted for service, pure in heart and fitted to be a light in the 
midst of this dark world. See how beautifully Paul brings 
that out in the epistle to the Romans. The first five chap- 
ters in the epistle to the Romans are wholly taken up with 
proving and illustrating the sinner's salvation without any 
works in it, saved exclusively by faith in the blood of Jesus 
Christ. Then comes the question, what are you going to do 
about this temper ? Is there nothing in salvation to cure a 
man of bad temper, and unholy ambitions ? Certainly there 
is in its place. Jesus Christ saves you before he ever un- 
dertakes that. That question was asked in the 6th of 



262 THE BRAZEN SEA. 

Romans, " Shall we go on to sin that grace may abound ?" 
Suppose we are saved ? Now, says one, suppose a man go 
on to sin ? Says Paul, What are you talking about ? What 
do you want to go on and sin for — that grace may abound ? 
Because your father is good are you going to sin against him? 
Because the good God saves you just as you are in your 
sins, are you going to be mean about it ? Here is the first 
mention of baptism in the book. So we go on by faith 
through grace, the only way that the sinner can ever be 
saved. Here comes salvation by water ; says Paul, " Know 
ye not that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ 
were baptised into his death ? Like, As Christ was raised 
up from the dead even so we should walk in newness of life/' 
" I saw a soldier pierce his side, and forthwith flowed there- 
from " — (not simply blood, that did for the sinner) — but 
" blood and w r ater." Glory to God, and it is water that 
cleanses, water is the cleansing element. All that the blood 
can cleanse is the sinner's sins, but if you want to cleanse 
the saint's ways you must bring water. And so, dear friends, 
the sea was for the priests to wash in. 

See how beautifully Peter brings that out also, "The like 
figure whereunto baptism doth now save us." Who are 
" us " ? We Christians who are already saved, who are just 
as certain to be saved as God. What are you going to do 
about sin ? About practical sin, about the power of sin ? 
" The like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us, not 
simply putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of 
a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead." How plain this salvation by water, 
the cleansing of a saint's ways, which is the second thing to 
occur in this salvation. God saves me, and it is his will to 
sanctify me. It is his joyous wish to save me. Finding 
that my dear Lord has made full provision for all my wants, 



THE BRAZEK SEA. 263 

all I do is to go on from blood to water, like a priest ap- 
plying that cleansing element to hand and foot, and then 
he is fit to go on into the holiest of all, a more perfect, 
joyous fellowship with the father and with the son Jesus 
Christ. See how beautifully the Lord Jesus brings that out 
in the 13th of John : " and, supper being ended " — (the Lord's 
supper of course. The Lord would not have put that in if 
it had not been the Lord's supper. What was in the sup- 
per ? This cup is the New Testament in my blood ; not a 
bit of water about it, this cup is the New Testament in my 
blood, shed for the many, for the remission of sins. Drink 
ye all of it — that is, the weakest of you and the strongest of 
you. Oh, my friends how you have perverted the Lord's 
supper, fenced it around, kept poor weak children away 
from it. The little lambs are not allowed to have a taste of 
it, and yet that is simply a supper by which we are to re- 
member his death only until he comes ; it is simply a family 
feast that the weakest of his children can enjoy. It is a 
family feast such as you have around your family table when 
you set the little child three years old in its little high chair, 
with its little tin plate before it, and he eats like a little man, 
and the grown son of twenty-one and the daughter of 
eighteen, and the father and the mother all sitting at the 
same table. The devil has been into the sacramental table 
and into the water of baptism, and oh, how he has perverted 
it.) And so, Jesus' supper being ended, and having had his 
dear children cleansed by the blood that cleanses from all 
sin and to the end of the world, whatever happened they 
were to come down to that sweet blessed love, and always 
know they had that much to their account in the bank — all 
of you do drink of it till I come. There was another thing 
that Jesus taught them about. He girds himself with a 
towel, and poured water into a basin, and began to wash 



264 THE BRAZEK SEA. 

his disciples feet. Peter made a blunder that so many of us 
make, and said, " Oh, Lord, dost thou wash my feet ? " Don't 
wash my feet. Very well, said Jesus, if I do not do it you 
will have no part with me. Oh, says Peter, you wash me 
all over. Jesus said, " You are as wild as you were before." 
You do not need to be washed all over, as a man that is 
bathed. Walking through the dusty world one will get his 
feet denied. What, are you going to go into the house with 
dirty feet? No, have them washed ; bring your feet to the 
dear Jesus. Does he wash them with blood ? No, he that 
is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, and then he is 
clean every whit. The blood cannot do it. It can cleanse 
me as a sinner but not as a saint. What cleanses me as a 
saint ? Water is just as perfect as is possible — a sine qua 
non in salvation, just exactly as the dear precious Jesus is a 
sine qua non in the salvation of the sinner. And not to 
worry you with further Scripture proofs, I think I have 
brought enough to bear on this subject. 

This is indeed a holy place where we can come in, where 
the shewbread is, and a light that never goes out is always 
witnessing that we are children of God, these are witnessing 
with our spirits and then on that golden altar the sweet in- 
cense offering going up forever and forever — an offering of 
sweet smelling savor ; and then from that point you can go 
into the holiest place — go into the gospel of John and live in 
the sweet presence of God, where the glory that would 
dazzle common eyes strike them blind, only fills you with 
the sense of his love. 

What do you mean by washing with water by the Word, 
Brother Barnes ? I will tell you in the language of the 
Scripture. Let me quote you that Scripture that puts the 
whole thing before you. " Jesus Christ," (5th Ephesians), 
"loved his church and gave himself for it," there is the sin- 



THE BRAZEN SEA. 265 

ner's salvation, " that he might cleanse and sanctify it with 
the washing of water by the word." What do you mean by 
the water ? Does a man being baptised — does that wash 
him clean ? Oh, no, no, no. That is only the simple form, 
and if you do not have the thing signified, it does not 
amount to any more for you than if you were ducked in a 
water pail, or if a Newfoundland dog were to come out of 
the water and sprinkle some water on you. To you these 
ordinances do not mean anything. Ignorance blots out the 
meaning of the Lord's supper and of the glorious baptism. 
Baptism means that we may be cleansed and sanctified 
through the washing of water by the Word. What do you 
mean by the Word ? Let me illustrate the meaning by a 
little of my own experience. I was once a slave to the to- 
bacco habit, and a man who is a slave to that is as perfect 
a slave as the slave to opium or whiskey. It is not so ter- 
ribly destructive, but in its way it is as despotic a master. 
I wanted to get rid of the habit, and tried in various ways, 
and at last I will tell you what hammered it out of me in the 
Lord's own sweet way. I was the pastor of a church, going 
around among people where it was not much of a custom to 
chew tobacco, for it is not near so much the custom for men 
to chew tobacco in the North as in the South. In the 
South we all chew. There is where I learned. I was at 
Chicago, and the pastor of a little flock there, and when I 
came into a lady's house, and was squirting my tobacco juice 
into the fire place or out of the window, and when her son 
came in the room I could see the uneasy restless look of the 
woman. She wanted to keep her boy from that habit, and 
there was her pastor setting the disgusting example, and ap- 
pearing to enjoy it just as a sheep would enjoy chewing its 
cud ; as if saying, " I have got something good ; why don't 
you chew/' That poor woman would just as soon have had 



266 THE BRAZEK SEA. 

a wild animal in her parlor. I saw it. I said, " Oh, Lord, 
what shall I do about this ? I can't quit it." Then I argued 
with myself, and I said, " Oh, well, what is the harm ; It 
is an enjoyment. Some people like coffee or tea, and I like 
tobacco, and that is all right ; and some people like dress, 
and I like tobacco, and why shouldn't we have our likes." 
But that argument was scattered to the wind when I read in 
the second chapter of Titus, " In all things showing thyself 
a pattern of good works." I said, Well, George, you may 
just argue as much as you like, but you know as well as you 
know your name is George Barnes, that you are not a pat- 
tern in all things. You are not a pattern on the subject of 
tobacco ; and one day I said, " Oh, Lord, you are talking 
to me — for God's words are always the still small voice, and 
I put the tobacco in his hands, and I have never seen it 
since. I have no more taste for it. That abominable filthy 
habit was perfectly cured. I agree with Moody, that a man 
may be a Christian and chew tobacco — that is a " dirty 
Christian." I believe this word of the blessed God is the 
water that washes you, and you will find then that all unclean- 
ness will be taken away ; all your bad habits and bad ways 
if you will submit yourself thoroughly. " Now, ye are clean 
through the word that I have spoken unto you." Yes, in- 
deed, by his own will he cleanses us, by that same sweet 
precious word of truth. I am so glad. That cleansing 
process shall go on as long as I live. Everything that I find 
out is displeasing to the Heavenly Father, the blessed Word 
of God makes me aware of what it is, and just sweeps it 
out, just as water which is a proper emblem is used in cleans- 
ing the dirt from my face. There is clean water, and I take 
up that water and rub my face with it, and now my face is 
clean and the water is dirty, and I throw the water out. 
My face is cleansed — cleansed by displacement. So the 



THE BRAZEX SEA. 267 

sweet Word of God comes and abides in your heart. " If 
my Word abide in you," says Jesus, "ye shall bring forth 
much fruit," and the devil's filth has got to go because there 
is not room for the two — cleansed by the washing of the 
water by the Word. Do you believe in salvation by water ? 
Do you believe that Jesus Christ loved his church and gave 
himself for it that he might wash, cleanse and sanctify it 
with the washing of the water by the Word ? Oh, blessed, 
blessed living Word. May that sweet written Word, that 
precious Word of God, cleanse us from all filthiness of 
the flesh and of the Spirit, making us perfect in the fear of 
the Lord. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God — 
sister, my heart's desire and prayer to God is, that you may 
know what you are baptised for. 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLO- 
MON. 



[ist Kings, ioth Chapter.] 

" The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment and 
condemn this generation, because she came from the utter- 
most parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and 
behold a greater than Solomon is here." That is to say, she 
" believed the report ;" it was but a straggling report, from 
some assertions, perhaps, of the wonderful wealth, the won- 
derful wisdom, the glorious house that Solomon had built ; 
it was a straggling report from strangers that had come down 
into Ethiopia to trade, perhaps in ivory or some such com- 
modity ; but it just struck a want in her heart. She gather- 
ed up that immense train of camels with all those costly 
presents of gold. As it written, she gave a hundred and 
twenty talents of gold to Solomon. Multiply twenty-seven 
thousand dollars by a hundred and twenty and you have 
the amount of gold that she gave to Solomon. Then there 
never was such spices seen in all that country as the Queen 
of Sheba brought to Solomon. She made all this costly pre- 
paration, and came all the way from the uttermost parts of 
the earth. Ah, this elect lady, as John would have called 
her, came from the uttermost parts of the earth. Elect lady 
means a lady who chooses to come to Jesus ; that is what 
makes her an elect lady, because she chooses to come and see 
for herself. She banked on a very small capital. She heard 
a report, and she heard it to some purpose. Dear friends 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 269 

remembex*. that where she lived, Sheba, was the country of 
Ham the accursed ; remember that, and his race peopled the 
land. She came therefore of an accursed race. She lived 
in the land of darkness, for Ethiopia means darkness, and 
she was the Queen of this land, but out of this benighted 
country came this elect lady on a simple report, that is all — 
a rumor that had reached her ears, and following up that 
with a faith something like Naaman of old, who heard the 
report from a little maid that waited upon his wife, just a 
simple prattling child, " there is a prophet in the land of 
Israel that can cure leprosy ; " that was a very small thing 
for a wise man like Naaman to listen to, and start on such a 
great journey with such a great train as he had ; but, my 
friends, there is where lies salvation ; it is hearing the report. 
It is the mistake of great numbers of our fellows that they 
will not come to Jesus until they know everything, until 
they feel everything, until they experience everything. Some 
men will not come unless they thoroughly feel that they are 
willing to give up everything for Jesus. Some will not come 
unless they feel what they call a change of heart, as perfect a 
contradiction as ever was heard of. There is no such thing 
as feeling the change of heart. My friends, you may feel 
the results of a change of heart in the actions, in the out- 
side life, but you cannot feel a change of heart. Some will 
not come unless they feel sure that they are going to stick 
after they come. That is to say, I will not put my foot in 
the ferry boat until I get across the river; that is to say I 
will not put my foot in the stirrup until I get at home, five 
miles off. That is current, and it passes for sound logic in 
these shallow days, when men are easily duped by the devil. 
I will not put my foot in any ferryboat until I cross the 
river ; I will not come to Jesus until I feel a change of heart, 
until I am thoroughly persuaded that after I come I will 



270 QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 

stay ; until I am thoroughly persuaded that I know what I 
am doing. I will not take a leap in the dark ; no, no, I will 
examine into this matter ; I will carefully ponder it, and 
pray over it if you like, and when I am thoroughly persuaded, 
and have gone through the Bible, and tested all the 'doubt- 
ful points, then I will come. In the meantime you die and 
are damned. How many have missed salvation who tarried 
in the land of darkness, waiting for a feeling they never 
could realize ? Let us take warning from the Queen of 
Sheba. She will rise up in judgment to condemn millions 
even of those w r ho had learnt the little adage that " Hell is 
paved with good intentions. ,, She took the right course. 
She did not wait to hear the whole ; she did not believe half 
she heard ; for she said so to Solomon ; " I did not believe 
what I heard." She certainly believed it up to a certain 
point. She believed it enough to make up a train ; believed 
it enough to put a hundred and twenty talents of gold for a 
present to this mighty monarch, and skim her good fine 
spices, and bring the like of which had never been seen in 
that country ; but she did not believe the half she heard ; 
no, my friends, nor does God ask us to believe the half we 
hear ; he just asks us to come to Jesus. He does not ask 
us to know more than we do, but he asks us to act promptly 
on what we do know. The great majority of the damned 
are so damned because they did not act upon what they knew. 
They waited for something that they did not know, waited 
for something that never came; thank God, our sweet elect 
lady did act on what she knew. She came from the ac- 
cursed race, the most unlikely people to be saved in the 
world. She did not believe the half of the imperfect story 
that she listened to, but she heard enough to make her de- 
termine to come ; and that is salvation. Salvation is not 
knowing much, that is, of things that accompany salvation. 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 271 

That is higher life, to grow in grace and the knowledge of 
our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; that is life more abun- 
dantly ; that is the saint's prerogative. The sinner has got 
nothing to do with that, but just to come on the bare report, 
just as Naaman came all the way from the land of Syria, to 
the land of Israel with a great train, on the simple testimony 
of a little curly headed thing about seven or eight years old. 
There was a little maid of the land of Israel — a little maid. 
God takes the trouble to put in the adjective. There was a 
little maid of the land of Israel, waiting on Naaman's wife, 
and she said " would to God my master was in Samaria, for 
there is a prophet that can cure it," that is all. Ah, my 
friends, people call a man a fool that will go upon such a 
little thing as that ; God calls him wise, for I need not re- 
mind you that man's wisdom is God's folly, and God's wis- 
dom is man's folly. As high as the heavens are above the 
earth so are God's thoughts above man's thoughts. God's 
thoughts are not as our thoughts at all. There is heavenly 
wisdom in the man who acts on what he knows. Naaman 
did not know much, only knew what the little girl had told 
him ; but he said, " That is enough, and I will go on what 
I do know." And he went and got cured. So this dear 
elect lady, hearing straggling reports and not believing the 
half she heard, said, " I will go and see" more ; and she 
came and sat at the feet of Jesus or Solomon. Never mind 
all her blunders, for she made the common blunder of sin- 
ners. She brought a train with her that was quite useless, 
for everything that she brought to Solomon, do you know 
she carried back. There are two accounts of the coming 
of the Queen of Sheba, and if you will read the 9th Chapter 
of the 1st Chronicles, you will find just a little item there 
that is of infinite importance that is left out in the 10th 
Chapter of 1st Kings, and really it is the back bone of the 



272 QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 

whole thing, and yet as God's most blessed things are often 
down in a single sentence, the careless reader is apt to over- 
look it. Read just where she turned and went. 

" King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, 
whatever she asked, beside that which she had brought un- 
to the king," that is to say he gave her back all that she 
brought ; that testimony was to go to the uttermost ends of 
the earth. He had more gold than he could waste. It was 
as plenty as the dirt in the streets. My dear sister, it was 
very kind in you, you came from the uttermost ends of the 
earth, take it, and let me pile another hundred and twenty 
talents on that ; and he gave her all she asked besides what 
he gave her of his royal bounty, all that he could think of, 
and piled on top of that everything that she brought, the 
magnificent spices and the gold, and she took them all back 
on her camels, and in fact she went back with a bigger train 
than she started with ; went back with her own train beside 
the royal bounty of King Solomon. I would like to have 
seen that train of camels. What a train it was. King Sol- 
omon's bounty added to all her riches ; and she was as rich 
as Crcesus. Dear friends, she made the common blunder 
of humanity, for she brought her whole train with her. She 
was like poor Naaman, who reasoned after this worldly 
fashion : " If am to get a great cure I shall have to pay a 
great price for it." That would pass for sound logic by those 
who submit to the treatment of quacks. You seldom hear of 
doctors that prescribe for nothing ; no, indeed, they are in 
a ring to charge so much a visit, and if one is found charg- 
ing under the fixed scale of prices, he is liable to be thrown 
out of the regular profession. The majority of doctors are 
like some hotels I have lived in — they are all bill. Whether 
they kill you or whether they cure you, it is all bill. There 
is only one doctor that never charges anything ; that is our 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 273 

Jesus. That is the reason I practice gratis. So you must 
not blame people if they come expecting to pay a great doc- 
tor's bill. I do not quarrel with Naaman nor the queen of 
Sheba, because I have done the same thing myself. We have 
all done it, poor silly fools that we are. That is only part 
of our ignorance, and the Lord gently, lovingly overlooks 
and dismisses it, saying, dear child, that is all useless. We 
bring our prayers and the Lord says, I do not need that, it 
is useless. We bring our tears, and the Lord says that is use- 
less, I have no use for anything of the kind. I give what I 
have got. You cannot get it out of me by wrenching open 
a clenched hand, for there is no clenched hand. It is backed 
by a loving heart. You cannot move my heart to pity by 
all the tears you can shed, .because it is moved already, and 
all your promises to do better have nothing to do with my 
salvation, because I save you, not because you are going to 
do better, because you have done nothing but bad, and your 
promises, therefore, go for nothing. Dear Queen of Sheba, 
remember I am a giver, not a receiver. Dear sinner, remem- 
ber there are two places, and it is far better to give than to 
receive, and I must have the better place. You do not want 
me to be put off of my throne and to get in it yourself, do 
you ? It is better, as God says in his book, to give than to 
receive, and the Lord must have the better place. If there 
is one thing that is emphasised from Genesis to Revelation, 
it is this, that God is the giver and never the receiver. Even 
when he seems to receive things, of his own has he received; 
of thine own have I given thee ; that is not much of a gift. 
If I give a man back a little of the bushels that he has given 
me, that is not a square gift, but the Lord Jesus " 'tends like 
it is a gift," as we say when we are children ; the Lord 
" 'tends like " he is getting something from us all the time 
we are giving back a penny of the millions of dollars he has 



274 QUEEK OP SHEBA'S YISIT TO SOLOMON. 

given us. Of thine own do we give thee ; of his fullness we 
all receive, and then, when we poor feeble vessels are so full 
we cannot hold any more, we give back the overflow to the 
blessed God. It is all very loving, my friends, but don't you 
be puffed out with the idea that you ever give God any- 
thing. In him we live and move and have our being. He 
is evermore the giver and we the receiver ; let us learn that. 
And so our dear Queen of Sheba made the common blun- 
der of humanity, and Solomon received it all ; and I dare 
say our poor prayers — (the Lord looks pitifully on us, and 
on the tears we shed, he looks down pitifully on us). While 
they do not please him, they move him to tender pity, and 
so dear friends, he gives without money and without price ; 
that is his character. He does not cast our prayers back 
into our teeth. I would not have you think he ever 
does anything unkind, but just hands them back with 
a gentle, shy pity. Solomon said to the Queen of 
Sheba, I will fill you up for life ; I will surely give you 
back all you have brought me. I know these gifts which 
you have brought from Ethiopia must have been a great 
drain upon your treasury ; well, I will give you enough 
to make it overflow for the rest of your life ; and so he 
gave her of his royal bounty, beside all that she had 
brought him. What a royal king he is, what a royal 
giver he is. Ah, brethren, the crime of humanity to-day 
is that they will not receive it. God is always trying to 
give us something, to give us the best ; always holding 
out his gold refined in the furnace. His hands are always 
full of it, backed by a loving heart. Oh, if sinners would 
but take Jesus as a Saviour ; if saints would only take 
Jesus as a sanctifier, what a happy world, what a glorious 
church we would be ; but ah, the poor, shriveled, withered, 
tottering thing we call the church to-day, is content to pick 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 275 

up a few crumbs that fall from the overflowing bounty of 
God, while the full measure of his love held out to them 
with loving hands is passed by. They get a blessing, but it 
is the mere scintillation of that fullness of which a loving 
God is ever inviting them to partake. Oh, that the church 
would open her mouth wide. Oh, that Christians would 
open their mouths wide, and receive the sweet blessings 
procured for them by our loving Saviour. Anybody can 
open his mouth if he will. You can bring a horse to water, 
but you can't make him drink. Stick his nose dow T n, and 
he may snort and blow, but you can't make him drink. Oh, 
brother, there is a spring of life flowing freely — no bottom. 
What is its depth ? No measure. What is its width ? No 
end. What is its capacity ? No end to its capacity and 
height. That is the saddest thing in this wide world ; not 
that there is sin in it — that is bad enough — but that is not 
the saddest thing of this sad world ; but it is because where 
grace so much more abounds men will not have grace. 
That is the condemnation, says Jesus himself, in his own 
dear words ; this is the condemnation, because light has en- 
tered into the world, light such as the glorious Sx>n gives, 
flooding everything, but men will not come to the light. 
They will shut themselves up close and draw up the blinds 
and close the curtains, and will not admit save a little strug- 
gling beam, that hardly serves to render the darkness visi- 
ble. Pity. Well, our Queen of Sheba came — this dear elect 
lady — came on what she knew, not waiting till she knew 
more, not believing half she had heard, she came to prove 
Solomon, for she had heard of the wisdom of Solomon 
touching the name of the Lord. Whenever you mention 
the name of the Lord, that strikes a chord in every human 
heart that is bound to vibrate until you unmake yourself. 
You can no more fail to vibrate that chord in the human 



276 QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON", 

heart, dear friends, than you can unmake yourselves. It is 
a part of your very being. The name of the Lord will 
always strike that chord. It was not so much to hear about 
his wealth, but it was to hear about his wisdom touching the 
name of the Lord, for whatever we may deny — and we may 
deny it as Col. Ingersoll has done — but I will tell you, the 
name of the Lord vibrates in that poor heart of his just as 
much as it does in mine. I have got other chords that 
vibrate to other touches, but he has that chord, and it will 
never cease vibrating until the day of grace is past. 

She wants to know something about the name of the 
Lord ; so she comes to him and proves him with hard ques- 
tions. Oh, my friends, we know some of these hard ques- 
tions ; they are hard for a sinner to answer. The hearse 
goes by your door every day. It will take you, how soon I 
cannot tell. The allotted age of man is three-score years 
and ten. Very few, however, live that long. Most people 
never reach it. A few r , by reason of strength, continue to 
four score, but sooner or later w r e are cut off and fly away. 
Where are you going to fly to ? There is a law as certain 
as the law of gravitation that governs your flight. You are 
going to fly somewhere. Ah, brother, you are going to take 
angel's wings, or you are going to fly down to the region of 
darkness. Where are you flying to ? You have got to go 
somewhere ; you cannot help yourself. You say you are 
going nowhere. The moment you say that, that little chord 
commences vibrating, and says, "You lie, and you know 
you lie." That is all I say to any man that says the con- 
trary, "You lie, and you know you lie." It does not mat- 
ter whether it is Col. Ingersoll, Paine, Rousseau or Voltaire ; 
for the minute he says you are going nowhere, he touches 
that chord that God has put within you — he touches it with 
his own finger, and all the men in the world, if they were to 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMOX. 277 

get down on their knees, never could convince me to the 
contrary, because I know how God has made me, and I 
know what he says in his blessed Word. The answer to it 
may be curses and blasphemy ; the answer to it may be, " I 
do not believe in hell," but, my friends, that little chord 
goes on vibrating until it is snapped and broken, goes on 
vibrating, and says, " You are a liar, and you know you are 
a liar." 

Ah, my friends, these hard questions come up whether you 
want to have them come up or not. We drive them from 
the door, but they come back on us in the quiet of the night. 
I do not envy any man who has these hard questions thun- 
dering at his door by day and night. They were as hard in 
my life as they were in any life, but I proved my Solomon 
with these hard questions. I came and asked him, what 
about this ? And he said, this about that, and that settled 
it ; and there are now no more hard questions for me. I 
have no mysterious providences. Mysterious providences 
took wing in my life five years ago, the 25th of August, 1876, 
and although I have gone through various experiences since 
then, to God's sweet grace be it spoken, I have never had 
a mysterious providence. It is all as clear as daylight, for 
if you w r alk in the light you never can have mysterious 
providences. They never can come into that charmed circle 
where the soul walks with God. It is given for you to know 
w T here it comes from. There stands the giver. While you 
are out in the darkness he could not give it, but when you 
go into the light then it is given to you to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of heaven. So, dear friends, if you have got 
any mysterious questions, any hard questions, you come to 
Jesus, and he will answer them all, and truly. Come if you 
have any mysterious providences in your life, and I would 
be willing to lose my crown if Jesus Christ does not make 



278 QUEEN" OE SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 

them all as clear as sunlight can make them. I cannot go 
any further than that. All that I have is my salvation and 
crown, and if I am willing to risk everything — no, there is no 
risk. Come, my brother, into the presence of Solomon. 
That is what you need. Come into Solomon's presence. 
His name is peaceable. That is the meaning of Solomon ; 
come unto me and I will give you rest. You shall never 
have an unanswered question in my presence. " Take my 
yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly, 
and you shall find rest unto your souls. ,, The second rest is 
more glorious than the first, in knowing that sin is past and 
that God has not only forgiven, but forgotten, as it is writ- 
ten, "thy sins and thy iniquities will I remember no more," 
but sweeter far than that is when we find "his yoke is easy 
and his burden is light, and you shall find rest unto your 
souls." How sweetly the Lord tells all out in this little story. 
She asked the Lord all the questions that were in her 
heart, and then Solomon told her all that was in her heart, 
and afterwards all that was in his heart. There is a won- 
derful difference between those two. I have got a poor, 
narrow, circumscribed limitation of views, but the Lord 
knows everything. When you go to him he will tell you all 
there is in your poor little, pent up heart, and then he will 
tell you what there is in his great, expanded, glorious heart. 
Ah, my friends, the glory of the second is greater than the 
glory of the first, for when the Queen of Sheba had seen all 
the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had built 
and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and 
the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel and his cup- 
bearers and his ascent by which he went up into the house 
of the Lord — how many is that — seven of course. It is the 
Lord's number that belongs to him. How many things did 
she see ? She saw all that the Lord has, and he has got but 



QUEEN" OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 279 

seven things. You can just class them all under seven 
heads. That is what the Lord does, beloved. When she 
had seen that, then there was no more spirit left in her. 
The Queen of Sheba was dead and buried and resurrected. 
There was no more spirit left in her. Well, the body with- 
out the spirit is dead. There was no more of the Queen of 
Sheba's spirit left in her, that is, she was dead ; but then she 
had something a great deal better. The spirit of God w r as 
in her. As soon as the spirit of the Queen of Sheba was out 
of her the spirit of God filled up the place for it. Remember 
the first touch of the Holy Spirit is not the filling touch, it 
is the sealing touch, but there is lots of the Queen of Sheba 
left there, and lots of John and Mary and Martha, lots of all 
of them ; but there comes a time when there comes a sound 
as of a mighty rushing wind, and it fills the house where you 
are sitting so that there is no room for anything else, as God 
filled the temple, so that there was not room for the minis- 
ters left to stand. There was no more spirit left in her.. All 
she could do was to say, " The half was never told." All 
the report that I heard I did not believe until I came, and 
now I see you. Ah, brethren, there is such a thing as walk- 
ing by sight, there is indeed. "Blessed are the pure in 
heart for they shall see God." I know they shall see him up 
yonder. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. I 
know when Jesus comes that we shall walk then by sight. 
Now it is simply by faith we know Jesus is here. I do 
not feel him there on the right hand, or on the left; these 
poor hands cannot touch him, but he is here. He has been 
consciously present with me for five years and a half. I have 
never missed him during that time ; even when I went to 
sleep my heart was watching for him. Do I want a book of 
evidences to prove that there is such a thing as the Son of 
God ? Do you want a book of evidences to prove that the 



280 QUEEN OP SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 

sun is shining? All you have got to do is to open your eyes, 
and there it is. Ah, brethren, "mine eye hath seen you." 
Job heard the doctrine that his fathers had taught him, that 
God killed his children and took away his property and all 
that. That is the story I heard from my father and he heard 
it of his. father, and so on. I do not know where the devil 
started it. Oh, my dear Lord, you never touch me. I see 
now behind the curtain the devil has done it all, and good 
Lord, to think that I was willing to lay it on you. The 
minute Job cried I am vile, Job was dead, was dead and 
buried out of sight. There was nothing left but God and 
God's love. He cannot be anything but love. Ah, my 
friends, if we would stop this twilight seeing of God, this 
looking at God through the loathsome works of the Devil, 
and read him in his true character we should find that he is 
love. Of course, we get these twilight glimpses at the first ; 
there is first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in 
the ear ; and all I ask of you is to follow on and know the 
Lord yourself. 

Now, I have not time — I wish I had — to touch upon those 
seven points. When she saw the wisdom of Solomon — that 
is the first thing. Wisdom means knowledge of God, 
wisdom in chemistry means knowing chemistry, wisdom in 
production means knowing farming. If you are not a wise 
and knowing farmer you will have all sorts of farming on 
your farm. 

The first thing I need is the first thing I get. I want to 
know God ; down comes my blessed Savior in a form I can 
handle and touch and talk to, and brings God before me. 
Indeed, he is God manifest, not hidden, but manifest in the 
flesh. God in the spirit I cannot touch and speak to ; but oh, 
friends, God manifest in the flesh so that these short arms 
can embrace him and can walk with him, and talk with him, 



QUEEX OF SHEBA'3 VISIT TO SOLOMON. 281 

and sleep with him, and live with him, and eat with him as 
his disciples did, just as much now as they did. That is the 
first need. I know God, he knows me, known to me in the 
person of his Son ; that is the first necessity of my soul. 
Then what ? I must know not only something about God 
but something about the house ; so the second thing she 
saw was the house that God built. The house that God 
builds, dear friends, in the heavens, not made with hands. 
This is manifested and revealed by the fact that God dwells 
within us, and then showing us we are all living stones con- 
stituting the everlasting temple, "magnincal" in the extreme, 
that is to be glorious in all the generations that are to come, 
the house that God lives in by which he is to be known in 
the everlasting ages just as a man is known by the house he 
lives in. Don't you know that Jesus Christ is to be admired, 
why, on account of the glory and beauty that he puts upon 
us. So the second thing, that is our destiny. The first is 
wisdom. What I need to know of God, that is the first 
necessity. The second is like unto the first, what am I to 
know of myself. Ah, brother that shall be the dwelling 
place of God ; you cannot go higher than that part of the 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ; that is 
the second thing. 

Now, after I am at peace about what God is, and have 
wisdom of God, and have wisdom about myself, and the 
house that God is going to build, then I am at rest about 
God and myself. Then I am at liberty to go and look 
into the details. The next thing touched is the meat of his 
table. Ah, that blessed Jesus that is to be admired in me 
is the meat of my life. First the manna, when I didn't 
know better, then the pomegranates and the figs, and the 
grapes so big it takes two men to carry one bunch. Oh, 
bless you, that is better than the wilderness — and the green 



282 QUEEK OP SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON". 

grass and the flowing waters. First manna. It is good in 
its place. That is what you get in the wilderness, but 
bless your life, when you come into the land of Canaan 
you do not eat manna any more. I have not eaten manna 
for five years and a half. Praise God my food that comes 
down from heaven now is pomegranates and figs and oranges 
and grapes with bunches big enough to take two men to 
carry one, and I am sitting under my own vine and fig tree. 

And so when she saw the meat of his table — that is the 
thing that Christ is to me in the way of refreshment and 
food all along life's path. And so I am to know the sitting 
of his servants. His servants are his ministers to do his 
pleasure. They are the ministers to wait on you that are 
the heirs of salvation, and bear you up in their hands lest 
at any time you dash your foot against a stone, for the devil 
has put these cobble stones all along the way for you to 
stumble over. I was always stumbling on some stone or 
other when I was in the 7th of Romans. Those messengers 
or angels of his — those servants, the moment he says go 
and take care of George, they fly as swift as the morning 
light to aid me. He gives his angels charge over us to keep 
us in all our ways. Oh, brother, I have not grazed my boot 
over one of the devil's stones since the 25th of August, 1876, 
praise the Lord. He has given his angels charge over me. 
I love to think of the sitting of his servants. There they 
sit around him swift to do his will ; the angels who exalt in 
strength, who can come like a flash in the morning light 
from heaven to the earth to help out a poor creature like 
me fighting with my back to the rock. 

And so she saw the sitting of his servants, and then saw 
the attendance of his ministers and their apparel. I think 
that carries us on, beloved, to the time when the church of 
the first-born shall attend to the administration of his king- 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 283 

dom ; for you see the few that are chosen are to be in such 
a glorious place, those who escape the tribulation. The 
church of the first-born always implies that the other is the 
church of the latter-born. The church of the first-born 
whose names are written in heaven. Ah, there are -his min- 
isters. Their apparel is glorious. It is like to the blessed 
form of the Son of God, for our vile bodies shall be fash- 
ioned like to his glorious body. I do not dare to say that 
the 7th of Romans Christians will get there. Many are 
called, but few are chosen. Not all shall go up with him, 
as I have told you again and again. I want to be in 
the church of the first-born and go up with my Savior, I am 
going to be ; all I have got to do is to keep light enough to 
fly. There is nothing that weighs me down. The ministers, 
remember, are of the church of the first-born ; that is the 
head executive department in the glorious administration. 
Remember that when the world is swarming with the sons of 
darkness, and hell on earth is going on there w T e will be in 
glory. Ah, we will sing the praises unto God in that day. 
There is a germ of truth in the doctrine of the invocation of 
the saints. Rome never cut that out of whole cloth. You 
never heard of a false doctrine that didn't have a grain of 
truth in it. There is a mountain of chaff in it, but the 
invocation of the saints is a true doctrine, which you will see 
come true in the days of darkness, when we who are in glory, 
the church of the first-born, the ministers that carry out His 
executive will, when we shall bear in our hands the incense, 
which are the prayers of the saints. Now we have one 
great high priest. We shall see not as you see things, but 
we shall see what no tongue can tell, no thought can com- 
prehend. She saw not only the sitting of his servants, but 
the attendance of his ministers and their apparel and his 
cup-bearers, and the ascent by which he went up into the 



284 QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 

house of the Lord — now we are in the house of the Lord. 
Down here my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, but, 
brother, that is only a rehearsal, that is only a foretaste of 
the day when we all shall be living stones. We shall have 
to go up for that. We shall be living stones in the house 
not made with hands, not eternal on earth, but eternal in 
the heavens. 

Whose house are you ? Ah, brother, the ascent by which 
we go up into the house of the Lord ; do you know what it 
is ? One of these days or nights I shall hear a sound that 
I shall know just as well as I know the voice of my dear 
daughter. I shall hear the sound of triumph from heaven 
that will say, I have come for you ; and I shall spring up 
with such joyful alacrity as I shall bound to meet my Lord 
in the air. That is the ascent by which I shall go up into 
the house of the Lord. One of these days I shall go up to 
be with him where he is. 

I have skipped one. The devil himself wants me to skip 
that. Let us go back to number six. I know that is one of 
the sweetest lessons that the Lord does not want us to miss 
for one single instant, because that is in connection with all 
this glory. How is it to be obtained, and how does it come 
to us. Ah, my brethren, it has pleased God by the foolish- 
ness of preaching to save them that believe. How is the 
drink borne over the desert ? By the rough camels. I am 
one of them ; I am one of those ships of the desert, one of 
those camels. It has pleased God to commit the treasure 
still to earthen vessels ; and the cup-bearers of our blessed 
Solomon are those who present the new wine — not this old 
devil's drink that will make you drunk, but new wine that 
"cheereth the heart of God and man." I know you would 
not like the taste of it at all, for no one that has drunk old 
wine desires new, but after you once get the taste of the 



QUEEN OF SHEBA'S VISIT TO SOLOMON. 285 

new you could no more go back to the old than you could 
fly to the moon. If the new wine does not taste right your 
taste has been vitiated, you have been drinking strong 
drink. Fermented drink comes from the devil straight, for 
you never get anything that will make you drunk unless you 
get it through corruption, and ail corruption comes from 
the devil; so I consign all these debasing things right where 
they belong, to the devil. Jesus Christ never made a glass 
of wine that would make a man drunk. He made new 
wine — sweet new wine of the gospel, exactly the wine that I 
am going to drink with him, none of your old intoxicating 
devil's potions, but new, with him in my father's kingdom. 
Remember, my friends, remember the cup-bearers. As 
God shall give me utterance, as much as in me lies I am go- 
ing to bear to you new wine of the gospel. I wish that 
more would drink it. I will bring it to those who will take it. 
Oh, brethren, let this sweet lesson of love sink in- 
to your hearts. Let his dear message just come in as an 
ocean tide and fill you up. Just open your mouth a little 
wider. That is what God says, open it wide and I will fill 
it. Your part is to open your mouth ; his part is to fill it. 
God bless vou. 



THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 



[Genesis, 1st Chapter.] 

I do not think any one can thoughtfully read the New 
Testament Scriptures without discovering that Paul, James 
and Peter, and the rest of them, found a great deal more in 
the Old Testament Scriptures than we are in the habit of 
finding. If you will just look at any concordance, or at any 
modern version of the Scriptures that has the different pas- 
sages that are referred to in the Old Testament drawn out 
in full, you will be astonished, my friends, to find the use 
that the Lord made of the Old Testament Scriptures in the 
writing of the New Testament. The same truths are there, 
but the one part illustrates the other. Why, the old Latin 
father discovered this fifteen hundred years ago when he 
wrote in a sort of Latin doggerel : 

iS Vetere Testamento novem latet ; 
Novo Testamento vetus patet." 

That is, " In the Old Testament the New lies hid ; in the 
New Testament, the Old is unfolded." They are mutually 
dependent upon each other. We cannot understand the 
New Testament without understanding the Old, and vice 
versa. So you see this carrying the New Testament around 
in one's pocket is a poor thing. Let. us take the whole 
Bible. We have got plenty of New Testament Christians 
in Kentucky, and if there is one character I will run from 
quicker than another it is a New Testament Christian. I 
don't know by what strategy the man gets in by taking the 



THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 287 

New Testament. It is only one-fourth of the Scriptures ; and 
the man that neglects the other three fourths will be a nar- 
row-minded Christian, a one-sided Christian. I am so glad 
that in these days the Lord is calling attention to this fact, 
that the whole Bible is dictated by the spirit of God. There 
is not a chapter in the whole Bible that begins to have as 
much Jesus in it as this first chapter of Genesis. There is 
nothing in the Bible but what you have got a germ of it here, 
and that must needs be so ; for it gives an account of the 
old creation ; and the old creation is an exact and perfect 
type of the new. As it is written by Paul, speaking by the 
Holy Ghost, " If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new 
creation." Not a new creature. You cannot understand 
the new creation until you understand the old. That throws 
us right back on God's account of the creation right in the 
first chapter of Genesis. There you w T ill find the whole of 
every step of the divine life of the soul of man. Our name, 
Genesis, means beginning — that is to say, the beginning of 
everything is here — the germ of everything. 

As the Lord shall give me utterance and grace to tell it 
out to you, dear friends, I want to show you what I may 
have learned, be that little or much, in this first chapter of 
Genesis, and how exactly it goes over the progressive steps 
in the divine salvation. Let us always remember that salva- 
tion is progressive. God begins with a small thing and goes 
to the great thing. That is the exact and perfect order of 
the new creation, that it never varies for one single moment. 
God did not make the world in a day ; he made it in six 
days, and rested on the seventh day. He advanced from 
the minor point in the creation up to the perfected features 
of it ; and then, dear friends, there is another thing I want 
you to notice ; this development marked every day in 
its turn, each day in its place, from evening to morning — 



288 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

that is from darkness to light ; from the small to the great, 
from the insignificant to the glorious, God's creation, 
in all its details, was marked by just this same rule — from 
the small to the great ; from darkness to light. Now, that 
is not according to man's idea at all, but it is God's fact, 
my friends, and I would you could all understand it; just for 
the lack of understanding that how many a person is made 
miserable. I have known some dear children of God 
a week old that were distressed because they were not as 
good as people that had been living in the light of Jesus* 
countenance for twenty-five years. That is nonsense. You 
might as well have a child crying because it has not a beard 
and a full set of teeth. God never ordained that a baby 
should be born with a mouth full of teeth. It does not 
need teeth. When it gets old enough to need teeth it will 
get teeth, all in God's time ; and so if a child would sit down 
and weep because it cannot do what its father can do, what 
folly it would be. I remember when I was a little fellow, 
I could not have been over five years old, for mother 
had just got me into pot-hooks in writing, and it was an 
awful thing for me to learn to write. She set a very 
nice copy, but my marks would not stand up straight 
like hers, and there I was scratching away for dear life, 
and grinding my teeth ; and, every mark I made, mov- 
ing my lips and eyes, and sweating over it as if I was 
splitting rails, making those simple marks or pot-hooks 
that my mother had set me ; and when I was in the agony I 
stood beside my father, who was writing a letter very rap- 
idly. To this day I can remember how my heart sank 
within me as I saw his hand gliding rapidly over the paper, 
and I said, " Oh, dear ! I shall never learn to write ; I 
never shall." I was ready to cry. I was only a foolish 
little child, dear friends. I lived to write a better hand P 



THE OLD AXD XEW CKEATIOiN'S. 289 

write faster, do anything connected with penmanship twenty 
times better than father could. If I had only then thought 
a moment — you silly, foolish little child, stop your repining, 
and wait until you get older, and it will all come right. 
Before [ had got well into the pot-hooks I wanted to be 
writing as fast as father wrote ; and I have seen lots of 
Christians that make themselves miserable on just the same 
ground. I see it in every department ; I see it especially 
in the "life more abundantly." Do you know there are 
more people repining in the life of holiness on this ground 
than any other, because they do not have everything, and 
feel everything, and own everything, and experience every- 
thing all at once ; and the devil is getting them down into 
the dumps over it, because they do not get along faster. 
Now, dear friends, I do not believe in never being happy 
unless you are miserable. Some people have a happiness 
that consists in being miserable over it ; but I do not 
want to he that way. I do not want to be worrying my- 
self about w&ai I am not, or about what I have not ; and, 
dear friends., -since I have learned the lesson of the new 
creation, as -seen in the old, that the Lord has made the 
world in six days, and makes a saint in six typical days, 
I am not going to worry myself if I find myself in the 
second, or third, or fourth day, because I am not in a 
fifth or sixth. But I am going to say, "By the grace of 
God I am what I am." There is happiness for you ; there 
is rest. I do not mean to say that we are to be conscious 
of living in a mean condition, conscious of displeasing 
God. I am not talking about that, but I am talking about 
a soul yielded into the dear hand of the Lord, thoroughly, 
constantly, to be carried on just as the Lord wants to carry 
you on, and after that the constant care of the soul should 
be, "By the grace of God I am what I am." I have 



290 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

learned, in whatever condition I am, therefore, to be con- 
tent. Do you know that godliness with contentment is great 
gain, I have seen lots of it with discontent. I see very 
rarely godliness with contentment. Better than any other 
one thing is this, to be godly and be satisfied with the mea- 
sure you have, going on not always stretching yourself above 
your measure ; that is what Paul is warning us against con- 
tinually. A child might as well try to fill up his father's 
boots as for a young Christian to try to live like an old 
Christian. He cannot do it. "When I was a child, I 
thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a 
child. " "When I became a man I put away childish 
things." There are few things more painful than to see a 
child with the manners of a grown person ; there is only 
one thing more painful, and that is to see a grown person 
with the manners of a child. Be perfectly natural, just 
what you are. When you are a child, act like a child ; 
when you are a man, put away childish things. That is the 
way of God's sweet creation. That is the first lesson God 
wants us to learn, that God made the world in six days. I 
am in a passive condition, therefore I am to be content. 
Guarding that point now, God has never asked you to be 
content in a condition of meanness, never asked you to 
be content under those circumstances. God keeps you 
awake, my friend, if you are doing anything you know to be 
wrong, or God makes you unhappy when you are living in 
meanness. My dear friends, it is well for us then if we can- 
not be content. Never do I want you to be content in any- 
thing less than a full surrender to God, but, once having 
surrendered to the blessed God, do not treat him as if he 
did not know how to do his work, and go along fretting and 
repining and hindering your growth. I know lots of good 
people that are stunting themselves — dwarfing themselves 



THE OLD AND NEW CKEATIONS. 291 

because they cannot stretch themselves to the measure of 
somebody else. It is the poorest business in this world, 
trying to live according to another's measure. It is just 
like somebody trying to wear somebody else's clothes. 
They always look awkward. Fill your own clothes. Be 
just what you are. I could have fretted myself to death as 
an Evangelist, if I had sat down to fret and whine because 
I didn't get as many converts as Moody. God taught me 
this lesson early in my life. I was just as well satisfied when 
I was getting twenty souls a week as I was when I was get- 
ting three hundred souls a week, or five hundred, as was the 
case in Frankfort. If the Lord has taught me one lesson, 
it is that of contentment, and I wish I could say something 
so that you would get some of this same life of godliness 
with contentment. 

Now, dear friends, in this matter of creation let me just 
point out to you a few preliminary facts before I proceed 
further, and the first thing I ask your attention to is, that all 
important fact that " God does everything." It is the back- 
bone of all religion ; it is the backbone of God's salvation. 
The Alleghany Mountains are not more the backbone of the 
eastern part of this continent, or the Rocky Mountains the 
backbone of the western part, than this fact I am telling 
you is the backbone of salvation ; and because it is so im- 
portant God brings it to the front immediately. It is the 
one thing that we are so slow to learn, and yet that the Lord 
is so anxious to teach us from the beginning to the end of 
the Scripture. It is one of the first lessons in the world to 
be learned by Christians, that God does everything. How 
do I know he does everything ? Because he says so. There 
is not anything in all that work of creation but what it is 
said that God did it, God created ; God saith, and God 
made. The first chapter of Genesis should end with the 



292 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

third verse of the second chapter, for the reason indicated 
in the structure of the text. In all those verses we have got 
" God ;" it says " God " did this, and " God "did that ; and 
in the fourth verse of the second chapter, we have an en- 
tirely different name ; and the " Lord God/' the " Lord 
God " — a name we never had once ; and that points it out 
as a division by the hand of God. God, my friends, is 
Elohim in the Hebrew, and the meaning is self-existence — 
self-absolute ; that is the idea. In other words, it is the God 
who works. Now, when I come to know the " Lord God" 
I find El-Jehovah. That is God the Lord. Jehovah is the 
name by which he is known to his covenant people. Every 
body knows of God. The vilest heathen that ever lives 
knows about God ; but the people of Israel know the Lord 
God. That is the name he revealed to Moses. That was 
the name by which he was to make himself known in person 
to the people he was to get credit from, Lord God, Jehovah; 
that is the family name you see. That is the Christian name, 
but now we have got another name which is Elohim, that is 
the first name. That is the God who does everything. That 
is the word that is translated God in the first chapter. Then 
the word Lord God does not tell so much what he did, but 
what he is. You see the exact order of the discovery of the 
blessed God in our souls ; for you and I know perfectly well 
that the God that does something is the first God we know; 
and then after that we find out God as he is ; become ac- 
quainted with him not by what he has done for us, but by 
what he is. At first we do not care much for him except for 
what he does for us, We are like children lying in their 
mother's arms ; as long as they can get what they want to eat 
and drink, and can sleep with somebody holding them, they 
will lie and §mile in the face of their mother. Baby love is a 
very pretty thing. I dp not depreciate it, I love the smile 



THE OLD AXD KEW CREATIONS. 293 

of an infant, but it is the smile of a little selfish animal, that 
does not care anything for mama apart from what it gets 
from mama ; does not care anymore for its mama than it 
does for anything else. You poor, silly mother, that think 
your baby loves you. How long would it love you if it did 
not get its milk ? And so it is with us poor children when 
we are first born. We smile in our father's face, and have a 
sort of little selfish love that goes not one inch further than 
what we can get from him. It is very sweet and very good; 
the Lord does not despise it. He looks at it as a childish 
thing. The Lord does not expect any better. When you 
are children, you think as children, act as children, speak as 
children, but when you become men you put away childish 
things. There is a better thing than that — not the God that 
does, but God as he is. I tell you the truth that I think 
very little of what he does. Since I have learned Jesus — lying 
on his breast, and hearing the throbbings of his heart, I 
think very little about heaven, and the heaven that Jesus has 
gotten for me. All that style of thinking and praying has 
gone almost completely out of me, but in its place the Christ 
my Lord — not Jesus, but Jesus the Christ ; not he who does 
things for me, but him, " who, not having seen, I love, and 
in whom, though now I see him not, yet believing I rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Not for what he 
kas done for me, brethren, but what he is to me, the bride 
of any soul, the husband of my love, the companion of my 
life, the joy of my joys, my Jesus all along. I think you 
understand what I mean ; I know some of you do, and I hope 
the rest of you will find out what I mean. Brother, sister, 
dear, it is a very sweet thing to be a child, but do not be a 
child always. God wants progress, God wants development. 
Lfcear friends,, if I see a child, however lovely it is, if I go 
away and come back ten years hence, and find it still a child 



294 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

it turns into the saddest sight that my eyes can look upon ; 
and the mother who rejoiced in her love over the darling, 
turns away from it and weeps, and cannot "bear to look at it; 
she says, My God ! I wish the child was dead and in its grave; 
it is a dwarf ; it will never grow any more. It comes to the 
age of twenty-one and is about three feet high. It is a 
monster. 

Life in the soul — ah, how many of these little monsters 
there are. The Church is getting to be a huge collection of 
dwarfs, monstrosities, children that are always children, 
children that have the years of a man, and growth of a child. 
There is not a sadder thing in all this world. 

So, brethren, go on and grow ; that is grow in grace and 
in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
and it is to aid in this blessed precious growth that I believe 
the Lord has given us this old creation as the type of the 
new. Now, remember this, God does everything ; in the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth ; do you 
know how many times that God is pronounced in the first 
Chapter of Genesis, including the first three verses of the 
second : just five times seven, still a multiple of that 
blessed number of the Lord. I want you to love what the 
Lord loves. If he finds a divine significance in numbers let 
us find it there ; and let us be glad to do it ; at any rate it 
is not by accident that this blessed name of God is given 
just thirty-five times ; it is given so often as to utterly ruin 
the thing as a mere rhetorical composition. He gives it in 
every verse and sometimes twice in a verse. There is not a 
book in the world but would fall still-born from the press if 
in the first chapter a name was repeated with such aimless- 
ness apparently as that ; but that is the precious life in the 
first chapter, because it is filled with what God does — with 
God who does it all, and that makes my part so easy. If I 



THE OLD A^D STEW CREATIONS. 295 

have something to do, why then I will have to stir myself, I 
will have to be on the strain. Ah, yes, but thank God there 
is nothing like that in the old creation or in the new ; for 
this first lesson that God wants to emphasize in our hearts is 
this ; " whatever is done I do." That is good news. I am 
glad he does it. I am not going to try to do his work for 
him. There is nothing in which we succeed so badly, my 
friends, as in trying to do God's w r ork for him. What mis- 
chief it brings to sinner and saint, to the poor man that 
strives and agonizes and burdens himself, and resolves and 
re-resolves, breaks off bad vows and avows anew — ah, dismal 
experience that, trying to do God's work for him. He has 
told you in the beginning — the first lesson in the new 
creation as in the old — " I do it all, why don't you let me do 
it ? " Ah, brothers, the second discovery God has empha- 
sized, is not only that God does it all, but there is another 
little word with three letters in it just like God — do you 
know what that little word is ? It occurs twice seven times, 
just fourteen times. Do you know w T hat the word is ? 
" Let." That is the second part of salvation. God does it 
all, and I let him do it all. Oh, the rest ! Oh, the joyous- 
ness ! Oh, the peace of it ! Oh, the success of it ! Oh, 
the fruitfulness of it ! What do you let him do ? Don't 
hinder him, don't bother him, don't worry him, don't fret 
him, don't try to help him ; let him do it, that is all. To 
the sinner or the saint God says, let, let, let. He could not 
say anything but that ; that is what he does. When he ad- 
dresses the earth that is about to bear the marks of his 
mighty power he never does a thing until he says, let, let, 
let. And so you see right here in the very beginning, dear 
friends, are two great, cardinal, fundamental facts, God does 
it all, and I let him do it. 



296 THE OLD AND NEW CKEATIONS. 

Can God do it without I let him ? Oh, no, God cannot 
do it without I let him. He is just as dependent upon my 
letting as I am dependent upon his doing. I speak with 
perfect reverence. There is not an irreverential thought in 
my heart. He is just as dependent on you for letting him 
do it as you are dependent on him for doing it. 

Here are the germs,here are the beginnings of all principles, 
I cannot do anything ; God does it all. God cannot let 
himself do it, you have got to let him do it yourself ; and so, 
beloved, I can see why God should say. " He that believeth 
hath everlasting life and shall not come unto judgment.'* I 
can understand it perfectly ; why ? Because that is my 
part. God cannot believe either for me or through me. I 
believe myself. God cannot repent for me or he would 
never have told me to repent. God cannot come or he 
would have never told me to come. He never tells me to 
do anything but what I can do and do easily. That is the 
glorious fact of this salvation. It does not matter whether 
it is before I have been saved or after the work of his salva- 
tion, his yoke is easy, his burdens are never grievous. That 
makes it all plain and simple. I repent because God can- 
not repent for me. " Jesus Christ is exalted as a Savior to 
give repentance and remission of sins;" that is perfectly true; 
and the dear precious Jesus, by his death upon the cross 
and by his ascension on high, I believe has purchased the 
whole thing, has purchased my privilege to let him. If it 
had not been for that, I would have sunk to the lowest 
depths ; but after this is done, I only insult God by saying, 
" Oh, Lord, teach me how to believe ; oh, Lord, help me to 
believe." He is not going to do it. Let me tell you this, 
that is the first lesson in the new creation. I know it shocks 
you. If you are wrong I want to get you right. I do not 
want you to ask God to help you to believe any more. He 



?HE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 297 

will no more help you to believe than he will ask you to 
reverently in the presence of the "Word of God. I live by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, but 
do not try to put off something on me that man says, and 
make it binding on my conscience as if God had said it. 
This sets the poor sinner to crying instead of believing ; sets 
him to feeling sorry for his sins instead of believing ; sets 
him to vowing he will do better instead of believing ; sets 
him to dropping his bad habits instead of believing, to quot- 
ing his bad companions instead of believing ; and the devil 
knows perfectly well he may die any moment and be damned 
in a single instant; hence he strives to keep you away from 
Jesus. My beloved friends, anything that keeps a soul away 
from Jesus one single moment, if it be the reading of the 
precious Bible — and I love it as well as any of you — though 
it be the bowing of the knees in holy prayer — and there is 
not any man that prays more than I do in this house, be- 
cause I am praying all the time ; it is the breath of my life ; 
I pray without ceasing, pray walking along the streets — Ah, 
but I say if prayer keeps you a minute away from Jesus it is 
the devil's prayer. If reading the Bible keeps you a minute 
away from Jesus it is the devil's Bible ; if leaving off your 
bad habits keeps you a minute away from Jesus you are at 
the devil's work. There is but one thing the Lord asks you 
to do, and that is to let him save you. That is the whole 
question. Give me your heart, that is all he asks ; not your 
love, that is an after consideration — give me your heart. 
Don't pray ? Xo ; don't read the Bible ? No ; what does 
he want? Give me your heart ; let me save you ; believe 
on my Son ; confess my Son ; that is all that God ever told 
a sinner to do. Then why not do it ? What is the use of 
doing forty things before you do it ? That is the thing that 
settles the question. Are you going to confess Jesus any- 



298 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

more after you have prayed two weeks about it or read 
the Scriptures two weeks ? Not a bit. Every step is out- 
ward from God ; every step is hardening the heart, and if 
you are saved it is because God sees you do it ignorantly and 
in unbelief. If man did wilfully what he does ignorantly, 
we never would have had Jesus. There is no sacrifice for 
sins, and the man that does such a thing wilfully is insulting 
God. We do it in ignorance and unbelief. Did you ever 
backslide ? I can tell you the reason. You thought you 
did something before you came to Jesus ; tried to quit 
swearing. I thought I had quit swearing, and I swore in six 
weeks like a sailor, after I came to Jesus. I thought I had 
quit drinking whiskey, and I got as drunk as any man you 
ever saw nine months after I joined the Church, and I was 
a backslider for five years. If backsliders are scattered as 
thick as autumn leaves ninety-nine one-hundredths of them 
come from trying to do God's work, or asking him to do 
theirs. You must reap what you have sown. It is irrefut- 
ably true of grace as well as of nature. God himself is sub- 
ject to the laws that he himself has made, and he cannot 
help it, I am talking about something that affects the whole 
life. Come to God without trying to do his work. Come 
to God without asking him to do your work. Walk in the 
middle way between the faults of our Arminianism and Cal- 
vinism, those Scylla and Charybdis on which many a bark 
has been foundered. So doing, you shall never backslide ; 
and so doing you shall never fall, and an abundant entrance 
shall be opened unto you into the everlasting kingdom of 
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The devil is an old 
practitioner, for he knows how to perplex us, knows how to 
pervert the simple truths of God's word to the endless con- 
fusion of saints as well as sinners. 



THE OLD AXD NEW CREATIONS. 299 

Ah, my friends, if men had only paid attention to the first 
Chapter of Genesis ; if they had only gone to the germs of 
things ; if they had only pondered the name of God, thirty- 
five times saying he did everything, and then what ? God 
rested the seventh day and hallowed it, because in it he 
rested from all that he had created and made. He did it 
all ; he rested from it. If you will just read that verse, the 
third verse of the second chapter, you will see the thing. I 
have not quoted it accurately, but, dear friends, you will see 
the great idea is this : he did everything; he rested because 
he was the only one that had done any work ; and so dear 
friends, there are two lessons of God. Oh, that they may be 
written on your hearts ; God does it and you let him do it. 
For many years I tried to be sanctified, until one day I 
found out that the whole of sanctification, being part of this 
new creation in which the law never varied for so much as a 
hair's breadth, was a free gift. I didn't know that. I thought 
I would have to be giving a little bit myself. But he is the 
giver of every good gift. Life is not every perfect gift. 
With him there is no variableness, nor shadow of a turning, 
not a hair's breadth. He is the giver ; he is the doer. 
When I found that out I was sanctified at once. I said, 
" Oh, dear Lord, what a discovery that is ? " I was sanctified, 
and have been sanctified ever since ? It was five years and 
a half ago. I do not mean to say I have not made progress. 
I have made rapid, almost uninterrupted progress since 
then. But the rule of sanctification is just like the rule of 
justification ; there is first the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear. I came very near being wrecked on 
that same rock. Because I was not Harriet W. Smith, I 
was thrown into despair ; and when I found out, first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, I grew up 
like a calf in the stall. We have progression in every detail 



300 THE OLD AND NEW CREATIONS. 

in divine life. There is a certain measure of growth even 
in the justified state. You do not suppose that a Christian, 
even in the 7th of Romans, does not grow some ? He grows 
like a medicated child ; a child that has to be continually 
taking medicine to keep it in anything like decent health. 
That is life, of course it is. A lady told me, "Brother 
Barnes, I have to take a blue pill every Monday morning." 
Said I, " I am so glad the Lord don't let me take a blue pill 
every Monday morning. It seems to me if you would 
trust the Lord and not take a blue pill every Monday morn- 
ing, you would get along a good deal better." There is 
such a thing as growth when you take a blue pill every Mon- 
day morning ; but it is not the right growth. The way to 
grow is to grow without any medicine. By eating good 
honest victuals such as God gives you, and do not swallow 
any devil's mess in order to keep you straight ; So, first the 
blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. There 
is progress in the 7th of Romans. You cannot get down in 
any position in the life of the soul except where you will 
find that is the order. So it is in the holiness life. There 
are children in holiness, and there are grown people. They 
are not all exactly alike. As I have pointed out elsewhere, 
there are lots of holiness people that have not got power. 
They say, " Oh, Brother Barnes, I have not got power." Very 
well, the time has not come. Those dear consecrated disciples 
waited ten days before the power came. " Tarry, until you 
are endued with power from on high." Let us understand the 
law of growth. The evening and the morning were the first 
day ; the evening and the morning were the second day — the 
third — the fourth — the fifth — the sixth until you come to the 
seventh ; and then there is no evening, praise the Lord ; no 
more darkness at all. I will defy you to find night or dark- 
ness in the seventh day. It is all light : and come to that 



THE OLD AXD NEW CREATIONS. 301 

just as quick as you can. There it is always light. Let us 
learn the sweet lesson of charity that God teaches us in 
this ; that in growth in grace, at every step, I don't care how 
small it is, the Lord says it is good. The Lord saw that 
it was good. There was nothing but the Lord ; there was 
not a fish in the sea, not a bird in the air, not a blade of 
grass ; nothing but light, and rough soil, and bitter waters. 
I suppose that is not a pleasant thing to look at. The 
Lord does not look at pleasant things ; does not go out, 
like so many people I have seen, to look at the sun, and 
say, "Oh, dear, did you ever see such an unsightly spot on 
that sun. How it does destroy the beauty of that luminary. 
See, here is a bit of smoked glass ; here is a telescope ; just 
look at the spots on the sun — just look at them." That is 
a very foolish way of looking at the sun. The better 
way is to let the dear light of God come into your eyes. 
That is the way we ought to look at Christians, instead 
of picking out their faults ; the faults of our neighbors 
form the staple of conversation. " Oh, she is such a 
sweet, lovely Christian ; does so much good. She is so very 
earnest, and so very faithful ; but " — and back of that but 
almost anything will come up ; and by the time they get 
through, after you get the other side of that but, the whole 
beautiful character is torn in pieces. Mercy, what a world 
this is. Ah, brethren, let us learn a lesson from God. I 
know so many blessed Christians, and I want to lay it to 
your own soul. I have not got entirely over the habit of 
picking flaws in my neighbor's coat. I have not got over 
the bad habit of looking at spots in the sun. The Lord is 
getting me out of it. I am satisfied with the progress I am 
making ; and I am going to beat the devil on that spot 
question ; and I speak this for myself, as well as I do 
for you. Speak evil of no man, and it would abridge 



302 THE OLD A3"D tfEW CREATIONS. 

talk. There would be such a silence in the world as never 
was heard of. It would sound as if the whole world had 
gone to a funeral. Speak evil of no man ; have no buts 
in your conversation. 

And God saw the light that it was good. So, if whenever 
you meet anybody or think about anybody, if you have got 
anything sweet to say, be sure to get that out ; but if you 
have not got anything good to say about them, hold your 
tongue ; never say a single word. Speak evil of no man ; 
it does not matter how much evil they do, do not speak evil 
of them. God saw the light that it was good. You see a 
vine with mellow clusters of beautiful grapes ; they give a 
good smell, but they are sour enough to make a pig squeal, 
but you need not say that. You can say, Vines, your ten- 
der grapes give a good smell. Stop right there. . You need 
not go any further. The Lord does not ask you to go any 
further. And God saw the light that it was good, God saw 
the firmament that it was good, and God saw the dry land 
that it was good, and by and by, as everything was com- 
pleted, it was all good. God saw everything that he had 
made, and behold it was very good. That is the last finish- 
ing word ; then said he, I will take a rest ; then the dear 
God consecrated one day that he set apart, and rested 
thereon. That is beautiful ; God rested from all the work 
that he had created and made. Whatever difference there 
is between creating and making, I cannot tell you that, but 
he rested, as the Bible says, from all — emphasis on all — 
which he had created and made. 

Dear friends, in the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth ; I shall just leave that lesson. God bless 
the word that he has already spoken. 



THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 



If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation ; that 
is the foundation of what I have to say about the first day as 
a type of the beginning of the divine life of God in the soul 
of man. For the better understanding of this subject, let us 
first determine, in the light of God's blessed Word, what 
creation is. It is not something out of nothing. I think 
that the popular idea or definition of creation is quite ex- 
cluded by the account of creation itself. We cannot go a 
step until we find out what creation is, and understand that 
it is not something out of nothing ; I do not know whether 
God can make something out of nothing or not. If he can 
he has never told us anything about it. All I know is what 
he has been pleased to reveal to us. I do not know that 
there is a necessity for any such thing as that ; nor do I 
pretend to be wise beyond what is written. I am neither 
going to make nor demolish the Bible. I want to live by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and I 
certainly know you cannot find anything about God making 
something out of nothing. I want to show you how errone- 
ous popular ideas are in many cases. The world is full of 
false ideas. True wisdom, dear friends, is to find out the 
truth and cleave to that ; for, mark you, there is no good in 
that which is wrong : there is no good in error. Now, God's 
creation, as far as I understand it, and I think you can see 
it by the language employed, is not making something out 
of nothing. In the beginning God created the heavens and 



304 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

the earth. He does not tell us how he created them or why 
he created them, or anything about it. Then, the next thing 
you see is that the earth is without form and void. It is in 
the Hebrew, Tohu va bohu y a queer and singular expression. 
I would like you to remember, first, God created the heavens 
and the earth, and then does not say anything about them ; 
showing there is ruin there, and that the blood of Jesus 
Christ is- just as necessary to cleanse the heavens as the earth; 
that the heavens are unclean in the sight of God. All we 
learn of the creation of the heavens is contained in a few 
obscure, casual hints, which are, nevertheless, sufficient for 
the well-instructed child of God. Very little is said about 
the heavens in the Bible, because we have very little to do 
with them. The Lord satisfies not our curiosity on that 
subject. When we get there we will find out. In the mean- 
while I am particularly concerned with the earth. That is 
the subject that I am deeply interested in, for I live here. I 
walk on the earth, and the problems of earth are the things 
that God wants me to solve. On that subject God gives me 
full information. 

In the first place we have to consider God as the Creator 
of the earth, and His works are all perfect. In the 45th of 
Isaiah he expressly declares: "I created not the earth 
Tohu va bohuy He did not create it that way. He 
created the heavens and the earth, and the man in whose 
heart the fire of God's love has been kindled feels instinct- 
ively that whatever the Creator made was made perfect, and 
that the Tohu va bohu (without form or void) was due to 
some other cause or agency. God says expressly he did not 
create it that way ; and I am to live by every word that pro- 
ceeds out of his mouth. " I created not the earth in vain." 
That word in " vain " is the very word that is used in the 
first Genesis — and the earth was without form or Tohu (vain). 



THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 305 

I take it for granted that God speaks the truth ; that he did 
not create the earth that way, but that something or some- 
body made it that way. Then, after knowledge of who the 
devil is, I find out he was a disturber of all this, and by fair 
implication, I fix the devilment on exactly the right person. 
I can find no person except him, on the state of facts pre- 
sented, that has anything to do with Tohu va bohn. I find 
this king of darkness is the only one who might be expected 
to bring darkness and confusion on God's creation ; and 
when I learn that afterwards, when God had restored things, 
the devil comes into the perfection of paradise and turns 
everything topsy-turvy, then I am driven back by the irre- 
sistible action of my mind to thinking that the devil was the 
author of Tohu va bohu. I do not assert it. 

I say it is a fair implication ; as I can find nobody that is 
the author of devilment except the devil — as I can find no- 
body that is the author of wickedness and confusion except 
the devil. Have you heard of anybody else ? But if the 
devil does this very thing all through the Bible, and is con- 
tinuing this wretched work every day while I speak, then it 
is a fair inference that the earth was without form or void, 
because the devil came in, in some way. God does not tell 
us how, or why, or whence he came. God created it per- 
fect. The devil comes in and turns it topsy-turvy. This 
earth is first represented to us as being created by God, and 
then we are told that it existed in a state of confusion ; 
darkness was upon the face of the deep. Salt and bitter 
waters were there, and there was not a dry spot of ground 
in the world. There was not a blade of grass or a tender 
flower, not a fish swimming in the sea, not a bird flying in 
the air, nor man to till the soil, nor four-footed beast, nor a 
creeping thing ; darkness and the waters covering the great 
deep. Ah, there was Tohu va bohu. No life, for the devil 



306 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

has the power of death. If there had been life, it was de- 
stroyed. There was death, darkness and waste. Do you 
think God makes things that way ? Nonsense, I do not be- 
lieve that of my God. I stand here on this question, 
which is now a question in the world, as to whether God is 
good or not, when God does good things. I stand in the 
name of God and with these Scriptures to prove it ; I say 
that God never made it that way. God does not make any- 
thing bad, never does and never can. As for God, his 
works are perfect. I know Tohu va bohu is not perfect, or 
he would never have gone to work to try to rectify the 
whole thing. God therefore comes down in the work of 
creation, as we call it, and undertakes to show what love, 
and grace, and power can do on the platform of a previ- 
ously ruined creation — and that is all the creation I know 
anything about. That is all the creation that ever I knew 
anything about. That is all the creation that God explains. 
As to how God created the heavens and the earth origi- 
nally, I do not know anything more than you do, and we 
neither of us know anything, because God has not told us 
anything about it. All I know is that from his nature and 
from his name, he created it perfect. How he made it, 
whether out of nothing, I cannot tell you. All the rest is 
hypothetical. I will not go beyond the written word : but 
on that I stand, and I want to be wise up to what is writ- 
ten ; not beyond ; therefore, creation is not making some- 
thing out of nothing ; creation is restoring what has been 
ruined. That is what God calls creation, and what we call 
the work of creation, that went on in six days — the restora- 
tion of a previous ruin. 

Now, when you come down to the spiritual application of 
that, you find out exactly what it is. Man ruined in Adam, 
originally made perfect. How was Adam made perfect ? 



THE FIEST DAY OF CREATION. 307 

Because God cannot make anything but what is perfect. 
Then the devil comes in and ruins him. Then God comes 
in in grace, and that is the new creation. God comes in in 
grace and undertakes to show what his love, and grace, and 
power can do on the basis of a ruined soul. So the old 
creation and the new correspond exactly. 

Friends, let us correct our definitions. Let us learn what 
the new creation is, as well as the old. Ruin first, perfec- 
tion second, ruin third, restoration fourth. What God does 
after anything is ruined, that is creation. And now, as the 
Lord shall give us light, let us go into this sweet and simple 
story, in order to find out how God works in your soul and 
mine. My friends, I have nothing curious to tell you ; I 
only want to bring a lesson down to our every day lives. I 
have a great ambition to know how God is dealing with my 
soul and the souls of others. I do want to know the ways 
of the Lord, because I know to learn his ways, that is true 
wisdom ; and you cannot learn his ways except from the 
Scripture, and you cannot do it unless you accept the data 
that God has given you. Now, he calls this work, whatever 
it is, whether it be of Christ, or of the Holy Spirit, or of 
the free will of man, he calls that the new creation, and when 
he utters the word new he points his finger back to the old. 

In the Old Testament the new lies hid ; go and study the 
old ; there you will find a full explanation of the new. 
When I get back to the new creation, there God has given 
me a picture, for a loving, grateful heart. I cannot un- 
derstand dogmatic statements ; they make my head ache ; 
but if you give me the picture to look at, I can just sit 
down and look at it, and learn something. There is 
nothing like pictures, friends. Here, then, is the picture 
— " Darkness broods over the face of the deep" — dark- 
ness covers the deep, the great deep. Now, the first verse 



308 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

in Genesis opens with a full explanation of the difficulties 
that have beset men's minds for ages, just as I have shown 
in the previous sermon that if men would believe what 
God said in the first chapter of Genesis, they have just 
got the key note of the whole thing. Arminianism in its 
worst features would have been impossible ; Calvinism in 
its deadliest features would have been impossible, but 
the holy medium that rejects the very worst of both, 
and takes what is good in both, would have been es- 
tablished in our hearts long ago. It is because men reject 
the life of God, that darkness comes on the earth. Light 
has come into the world, but men love their own notions, 
and will not accept the light ; so I want to show you that in 
the very first chapter of Genesis, in the very first two verses, 
we have got the whole theory of salvation just put up before 
us so simple that if we would only believe it as God has given 
it to us, just open our mouths and receive it — feed on this 
spiritual food, the controversies that have filled the thou- 
sands of volumes would have been utterly impossible. Now, 
God says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and 
the earth. He is the creator. Then the question comes at 
once, what is the agency that he used in this creation, for 
we all know that there is an agency of some kind in every 
work. My dear friends, if you see a good piece of handi- 
work, you want to see the tool by which it is made. How 
in the world did you do it ? I was looking at a little ship 
put in a little flat whiskey bottle. Thank God it had a 
little ship in it instead of whiskey. I wish all whiskey 
bottles in the world had little ships in them so that you 
could not get whiskey in them. I said, I would like to see 
the tool that man used in order to accomplish so delicate a 
piece of work. That little manipulation could not be done 
without perfect tools. It was. the natural impulse of the 



THE PIEST DAT OF CEEATION". 309 

heart, to enquire, "How in the world did you do that ?" 
And to the question of creation God gives an answer. In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 
There is the author, there is the great Father, there is the 
great one who produced everything. Well, all right, the 
Father of creation ; we will find him after a while as the 
Father of redemption. That is the first character we know 
him by. That is the first thing Jesus came down and re- 
vealed to us, the great All Father, the Father of everybody. 
Well, now, the very first lesson in the old creation is exactly 
the same thing. We have got the All Father in that sen- 
tence. " In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth." "How did you do it, Oh, great father of the uni- 
verse, how did you do it ?" W r ell, said he, I will tell you. 
" The spirit brooded over the face of the waters, that is the 
way I did it." That is a great gratification, to know as much 
as that. That is about all I can know. Do you know the 
meaning, dear friends, of that word brooded ? The idea is 
plain ; you people that have raiLed chickens know exactly 
what it is. You have seen the hen shake herself and spread 
out her feathers until she is as large as possible that she 
may the better cover the eggs in her nest. 

The illustration is homely, but perfect, for that is really 
the word in the Hebrew ; that is the way the spirit did. 
That is exactly the way the spirit brooded over the face of 
the deep. I cannot tell you any further than that how it 
was done. I am just taking God's word for it. I can tell 
you that an egg will not produce the chicken without the 
hen sits on it, or you must have something that corresponds 
to that. Every time she sits on the eggs she sits down so 
she covers them all ; if she does not they will be addled. 
Beyond that do not ask me anymore. That is the wonder- 
ful mystery of life. We may bother about the mystery for 



310 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

ages and never will find out. Your little head and mine 
cannot contain it, and that is the reason God does not give 
us the information. If it was of the size to go into your 
head and mine God would not refuse to give it. He gives 
us everything that he can give us, but you don't want an 
idea put into your head that would burst it open like a 
bombshell. So the good God in his tender mercy with- 
holds from us that which we cannot understand. This is 
the simple fact in the case, God never, in the old creation 
or in the new, establishes anything without the blessed 
glorious, everlasting intervention of the Holy Spirit. That 
is just the very thing that God teaches in the very first verse 
of Genesis. And yet you know that there is nothing that 
has been more fiercely contended for than that of the direct 
operation of the Lord God on man. There is no worse 
heresy that I know of in the world, when God has said 
there is no creation, just as there is no hatching of an egg 
without incubation, so there is no creation without the 
blessed spirit. You see he brings men into prominence, 
but just as he has revealed himself all through, that is the 
plural number. There is trinity in unity. There you see 
where the dear God gives the doctrine in the Trinity. In 
the beginning God — Elohim there is the plural of it, which 
is, there is only one God — that is our translation, and yet 
the literal translation is, in the beginning "Gods" created — 
Elohim — the plural of it ; and here we have a doggerel 
something like my own poetical effort : — 

" Three in one, and one in three, 
And the middle one he died for me." 

As a matter of gospel truth it would be impossible to im- 
prove on this in the same number of words — we have God — 
— the All Father ; God the Blessed Spirit who is the agent 
in this almighty work of reproduction, regeneration, recrea- 



THE PIRST DAY OF CREATION. 311 

tion and restoration, for the Spirit is the everlasting, con- 
stant, perpetual agent. Now, what are the means? Let me 
see what the Scriptures have to say : " And God said, let 
there be light." Can you say a thing without pronouncing 
a word ? You cannot do it. You cannot say anything 
without saying it. There is nothing that is made previous 
to that word — "and God said." But there you have got 
the means. There you have got the Word of God. There 
you have got the third person of the Trinity. There you 
have the name of the blessed Jesus. In the beginning the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. What do you 
mean by the Word ? Why, it is God manifest in the flesh. 
Who is that ? Jesus Christ. So, you have the mystery in 
the germ, but as clear as God's sunlight can make it — the 
three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Spirit, the ever- 
lasting Word ; and there is no creation without the concur- 
rence of these three. You cannot have it. It is impossible. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is the thing that all holy souls 
hold fast to in the midst of all ignorance. Ah, brother, the 
thing that the human soul clasps nearest to its heart, the 
blessed doctrine of the Trinity, is the first thing that God 
reveals. 

Here, then, is the simplicity of the gospel of the grace of 
God, " In the beginning God created." You have got 
nothing to do with the power in creating, in restoring ; God 
does it all. The All-father is the one who does it. Very 
well, then what ? Then, the agency is the blessed Spirit. 
Let him do his work. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
You hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell whence it 
cometh nor whither it goeth." You can see certain effects, 
but the mightiest tornado or the most destructive cyclone is 
an incomprehensible mystery. Very well, don't trouble 
yourself about it. I have had a rested life since I did not 



312 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

concern myself about things that are too high for me. Do 
not trouble yourself about the great Creator, and how he 
produces the spirit of life. The evolutionists may work 
their brains out if they like, in trying to evolve something 
out of something else, or something out of nothing. It is 
a pitiable way to spend a man's life. The way of true 
wisdom is to just take facts from His Word, for you can 
understand that. There is something when you get down to 
the Word that touches me on this point. There is in this 
creation a point where man and God come together. They 
do not come together in the mysterious operation of the Holy 
Spirit, for that will ever remain a mystery. Nicodemus 
could not explain it any better than you or I. It is a stand- 
ing mystery to this day. But there is something I can see ; 
that is God manifest in the flesh. There is a point where 
God can touch me, and I can touch God. There is a point 
where I can come upon the stage. There is a point where 
man and God come together in this glorious creation, old 
and new, and that is the divine Word. Therefore, faith 
cometh not by the Holy Spirit ; not by God the Father, but 
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. 
Ah, brother, this living word teacheth me. The God mani- 
fest in the flesh. He is the true nexus between God and 
man, God over all, blessed forever more, divine-human 
made in one. Ah, there is where I can touch God and God 
can touch me in person. There is only one point in all the 
universe where God can touch me, and that is by His loving 
Word. 

So, brethren, it is written in James, " Of his own will begat 
he us with the word." And Peter says, " We are born again, 
not of corruptible things such as silver and gold, but by the 
Word of God which liveth and abideth forever.'' Well, 
Peter, what Word do you mean ? Why, this is the Word, 



THE FIRST DAY OP CREATION. 313 

and this is the Word par excellence. There are a great many 
words, but this is the Word which by the gospel is preached 
unto you. Do you know what that word is ? " Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Faith cometh 
by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." I claim Jesus 
as my Savior. I embrace him in these short arms. He comes 
into my heart and life. The life I now live I live by the faith of 
the Son of God. It is no longer I who live but the Son of 
God. The rest is a mystery profound. I shall understand 
it when I get to heaven. I cannot tell you how the grass is 
painted green, and fire is painted red. I can tell you all 
about it when I get to heaven. In the meanwhile I have 
these simple facts in creation ; everything is dependent upon 
my hearing and hearing upon the Word of God. Ah, my 
brother, " Let him that heareth say come." " Hear what 
the spirit saith unto the churches." He that heareth the 
Word ; he that receiveth — " Faith cometh by hearing, hear- 
ing by the Word of God." Not every word, but the word 
par excellence. That is, he that believeth on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, on the Savior that brings it down to him. Now, I 
can take it in ; I can believe ; I can live. I can love an un- 
seen presence. I will believe, praise the Lord, and that is 
the whole of it ; and the very minute you hear the first word 
then begins the work of restoration ; then the work begins 
that never can be cancelled ; then the eternal work of God 
begins, the moment I hear. "And God said." Whom was 
he speaking to ? Why, dear friends, he w r as speaking to the 
earth that was to be restored. Can the earth hear ? God 
speaks to it as if it could hear. " Oh, heavens, give ear." 
" Oh, earth," you say " it is the language of a hyperbole, it is 
the language of a metaphor"; call it any language you please; 
it is something and it means something. God when he says, 
" Hear," means hear. He does not say taste, does not say 



314 THE FIEST DAY OF CREATION. 

smell, but says, hear. " Hear, O earth, hear, O ye heavens." 
And then, dear friends, we are taught this blessed mystery 
that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of 
God. So God addresses me. That is the first lesson of 
the new creation. Not what I can do, but what I can hear. 
Say that I am so dead I cannot reform myself ; so dead that 
I cannot even do the smallest thing without the devil coming 
in and turning me topsy-turvy — it is not what I can do, 
but what I can hear ; thank God it all comes from that 
Faith cometh by hearing — not by smelling, not by tasting, 
not by feeling — Oh, how the devil rings in every sense but 
that which God ordains. He has brought in everything, 
and made that the way the sinner is saved — the old liar. He 
infests every avenue of truth with his soul damning lies, but, 
faith cometh by hearing, and only by hearing. I am not 
sure that I have explained it as thoroughly as it lies in my 
mind, for dear friends, if the thought is at all new to you, 
you are liable to be confused. While I am talking I can well 
remember when the true idea of faith " coming by hearing " 
was first presented to my mind. It just upset me, but it is 
a good thing to be upset. Dear friends, if you are not set 
up right, it is a good thing to be upset. The dear Lord 
went on telling me over and over again, until the mists of a 
false theology were dissipated, and the truth stood out as 
clear as daylight I do not know whether my stammering 
tongue has given you an inkling of it, but it is very clear in 
my mind. Just ask Him ; sit at the feet of Jesus ; live up 
to what you do know, and God will teach you more. The 
first effect of a clear, sweet, bubbling, spring, struggling up 
from the bottom of an old, dead, flag-covered pond, is just 
to set everything that is slimy and corrupt and filthy afloat ; 
and now lizards go crawling through the grass, and frogs 
hop, and at first you say, dear me, you had better let the old 



THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 315 

thing remain quiet. What have you done ? Just set every- 
thing that is slimy and creeping to work. Come in a few 
minutes when they have all floated off or crawled into the 
mud that they belong to, and it is as clear as crystal. And 
so it is with these well springs of salvation that God makes 
to bubble up in the heart. "I will be a well of water." 
The first effect of a spring is to stir up everything that is 
muddy. That is the devil trying to fool you. Hold on ; 
give God a little time. Let patience have her perfect work. 
He will clear all up, and you will have a glorious, fresh re- 
servoir of water instead of an old malarious swamp that you 
had before. 

The first thing that God did — and this is the first day — 
God said, "let there be light, and there was light; and 
God divided the light from the darkness. And the light 
God called day and the darkness he called night. And the 
evening and the morning were the first day," That is the 
simple account of the first work that God ever performs in 
the human soul. The moment I hear him, if there be first 
a willing mind, God accepts me. That is equivalent, 
you see, to " Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word 
of God." The moment I hear and understand and respond 
by willingness, why, dear friends, then God says, let there 
be light, and all hell cannot keep the light back. It was 
nothing but darkness. The devil's work of darkness cov- 
ered the face of the deep. The creature was very helpless, 
but God was very near, for the spirit brooded over the 
waters ; and when the earth heard the voice of God, " Let 
there be light," there was light. Oh, my friends, if a man 
is only willing, the devil is powerless to prevent him from 
receiving blessings. If he will only let God do his blessed 
work upon him nothing can come to pass to prevent it. 
An unwilling mind God cannot work with. An unwilling 



316 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

soul God cannot save, for God has ordained from all etern- 
ity that he will only save them that believe, and believing 
means being willing to let God do his work, and saying so. 

God divided the light from the darkness. I want you to 
notice, dear friends, that there is a large part of this new 
creation that is taken up just in getting things all arranged 
so that something can be done, having things divided and 
pointed off. It is just like a man clearing out an old brush- 
wood that he wants to make a nice farm out of. The very 
first thing he does is to just get an idea of how the land 
lies, see how the waters run through the fields, and think 
exactly how he is going to divide the old thing up, and he 
runs his fences — tries them this way and tries them that way 
until he says, " Now, that will do for a number of crops ; 
the water comes right into these lots just as I want it. This 
must be for corn, that for oats, and that for fallow land. 
Now that is all right." Now, he has got his fences all fixed 
right and he can go to farming. If he goes pell-mell into 
the thing he will break himself up moving his fences. But 
if you will just plan everything, have an apple orchard here 
and fence off the farm and divide it, and appoint every- 
thing right, then you have got a magnificent foundation 
made for being a successful farmer. That is exactly the 
way God does with his farm, for you are God's husbandry ; 
that is, you are God's farming operations. So, in this 
blessed work of creation, God first divides and appoints all 
these things. The first thing he does is to divide the light 
from the darkness. The devil has got everything mixed up. 
We call bitter sweet and sweet bitter. We do not know 
anything, my friends. What horrible confusion there would 
be in society if we would just transpose the names of about 
twenty familiar things. We would all be in the mad house 
before a week. We would not understand each other. 



THE FIRST DAY OF OREATIOK. 317 

So the first thing God does is to get us to call things by the 
right name. Light he wants you to call light. That is 
what the devil does not want you to do. If the light which 
is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness, said Jesus. 
And you will find that the devil produced more devilment 
by mixing up the names of things than anything else. 
What do you mean by repentance, devil ? "Why, don't you 
know what that means ? It means, you ought to be sorry 
for your sins." What do you mean by coming to 
Christ, devil ? " Coming to Christ, why, that means a full, 
thorough appreciation of what a poor sinner you are, a 
thorough resolution that you will never do anything that is 
wrong, and a thorough vow before God that you will at once 
quit what you are doing, and after you have shown that 
you mean business by being a great deal better, then join 
the church, and show that you are not ashamed to put your- 
self with the people of God ; that means coming to Christ." 
You still let him call things by the wrong names. I am not 
denying that these things are all right things in their places. 
The devil says coming to Christ means looking over the 
Bible, seeing whether you have got things right, and reading 
it from Genesis to Revelation on your knees, and when you 
get through the Bible and find out exactly how it is, then 
like a steady man, not in excitement, just go quietly off and 
join the church. Now, my friends, what God wants you to 
do is to call things by their right names. The light he calls 
day and the darkness he calls night. Day in Hebrew means 
movement, Night in Hebrew means crookedness, deviation 
from a straight path. Ah, my dear brother, just let me tell 
you how the dear Lord has given us the latest theory of 
light, will you ? I want to show you how the wisdom of 
God in the oldest book of the world has just in one little 
word given us the latest results of modern scientific investi- 



318 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

gation on that wondrous subject on which men have been 
floundering for thousands of years — What is light ? And 
the very last investigation shows that light is movement of 
an infinitesimal number of whatever you may please to call 
them — that is light. God said that six thousand years ago, 
when he called the light movement. If they had just gone 
to the Bible, that would have set men to work on the right 
road. God does not intend to teach science. He takes it 
all for granted. God knows just exactly what light is. He 
uses a word, and if we would only take God's account 
for true, not only in theology but in physiology and astronomy 
and everything else we would have less trouble ; but for lack 
of that we go philosophising around. Hugh Miller blew 
out, what he was pleased to call his brains, over the first 
chapter of Genesis. Why, he had his theories of science, and 
he twisted God's word, and pulled out one little sentence 
and chopped off another that was too long, and ended it all 
by announcing his theory and committing suicide. He was 
a good man too. If he had been one of the devil's he 
would not have killed himself ; but when a child of God 
comes down to that the devil has got a chance at him. One 
of the finest minds that the world has ever seen blew his 
brains out because he would not sit down at the feet of 
Jesus and learn heavenly wisdom as God wanted him to do, 
but he would understand everything. Let us understand 
this in passing. God calls the light movement. I have got 
a much better thing to tell you than the agreement between 
this and the latest scientific investigation. God calls the 
light movement and the darkness crookedness. There is 
nothing straight about darkness. God has nothing to do 
with anything that is crooked. This generation is a crooked 
and perverse generation. Darkness means crookedness. 
Light means straightness. As for God, his lines are all 



THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 319 

plumb lines. There is nothing crooked about them. Why 
is it that God saw that the light was good ? Well, it was 
light. It was not the sun. The sun had not been made yet. 
I am not concerned with the speculation of scientists. I 
believe what God says. He made the universe, and I be- 
lieve that he knows more than any of them. He is the 
scientific author of everything. We in our poor shallow 
ideas say the sun is the author of light ; and man in his pre- 
sumption and self-conceit will undertake to teach the good 
God how to make light. In the beginning God said, let 
there be light and there was light — there was movement. 
Why does God see the light and say the light was good ? I 
can tell you ; it is the beginning of life. It is life. First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear ; first 
infancy, then childhood, then manhood and womanhood. 
Let us never forget that. Why does God call light good ? 
Because it is good, good in itself, and better for the promise 
that lies in it ; just as you say when a little child is born in- 
to the house, "Oh, there is such joy in the house." What 
is all that joy over ? Joy that a man is born into the world. 
I wish you would go and look at what they are all rejoicing 
over ; a little helpless, uninviting object, squaring itself to 
the universe as if it were fighting because existence had 
come so suddenly upon it. There is nothing prepossessing 
in a new born infant, and yet everybody is rejoicing over it. 
My friends, that joy can never be repeated again. The day 
it was first said a child was born in my house, was a day of 
rejoicing. I have had children born since, but never had 
that sensation but once — the joy that a man and woman have 
over their first-born, there is nothing like it in this world. 
That is the reason Jesus Christ is the first-born of God. 
God has joy over his Son because he is the first-born. There 
is joy when another child comes into existence. The heart 



320 THE FIRST DAY OF CEEATIOE". 

of God throbs with joy when any of his children are born ; 
but oh, my brother, when the first-born came into the world; 
I know something about it. I know something about the 
way God felt when his first-born came into the world, in my 
measure. He is God and I am a poor creature, but in a 
measure it is exactly the same thing. My mother, have you 
forgotten ? Shame on you, if you have. Father, have you 
forgotten ? Shame on you, if you have. Can a woman for- 
get her suckling child — her first-born ? Ah, my brother, if 
it had not been for one thing, my joy in the very hour of my 
first-born's existence would have been turned into sorrow, if 
it had not been for the outcome that was in that little mor- 
tal ; if it had not been, as I looked at that little thing, there 
came up the vision before me of a little girl beginning to 
talk. It was afterwards realized. The little hand grasped 
my poor finger, I could feel the tender pressure of it as I 
looked in the cradle, and it said papa. I just looked and 
sat and dreamed. And then it was a school girl, and then 
it grew up into graceful womanhood. I saw her then just as 
I see her now, the dearest object to me on earth. I saw all 
that in the cradle. That is the reason that I rejoiced. 
That is the reason God rejoiced. It is not for the little 
brown seed ; it is not for the insignificant little sapling, but 
it is for the giant oak that tosses from its mighty branches 
the storms of centuries. That is the reason that God re- 
joices when he sees the light. There is movement in it, all 
undisciplined, all ungraceful, if you will ; but dear friends, 
did you ever see an ungraceful movement in a child ? 
Never. Did you ever see the movements of a child mim- 
icked by a man, and gracefully done ? Never. In his 
movement there is nothing graceful. Whenever we look at 
a baby there is nothing uncouth in the movements made by 
it. There must be something in the outcome of them, that 



THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. , 321 

is the reason why God, the very moment a sinner repenteth, 
rejoices. Why ? It is nothing but the poor fellow come 
back covered with rags and filth. That is all there is about 
it, but he repents. He has changed his mind, that is all, and 
the father's heart just bursts out with joy, and he clasps him 
as if he was the sweetest scented boy on earth, and he never 
minds anything. The tears of joy fall down on his upturned 
face. Do you know why ? He sees those rags off of him ; 
sees him clothed in his right mind ; sees him the prop of his 
declining years ; sees this boy reformed, better for that wan- 
dering. He sees him cured of his wildness, sees him more 
careful of his money, for his former profligacy and spend- 
thrift life ; and the heart of the father rejoices. I am so 
glad that when God sees the weakest of us, he is looking on 
what he can make out of us in a thousand years or ten 
thousand years. And why am I talking about years ? Eter- 
nity has no years in it. It is an everlasting future when 
God shall lengthen out this everlasting life of ours, and 
every minute shall be filled up ; an advancing, glorious ex- 
istence in the eternal future, with no disabilities, no draw- 
backs, no hindrance. Think brother, sister, of what we will 
be in a thousand years' time; think of what we will be in ten 
thousand years ; think of what we will be in a million years. 
Think of the glorious body that our God will clothe us in, 
the grace and beauty that we will wear. So, I do not won- 
der that God looked at the light and said it was good. It 
was a mighty poor little thing. It shone out over the blank 
waste of the bitter waters with never a fish in the sea, never 
a fowl in the air, never a man to look upon it all, never a 
four-footed beast or creeping thing to perceive the change ; 
it was light shining out over the waste that the devil had 
produced ; but oh, the promise that was in it ; the joy that 
was in it, for it was the beginning of the end. That is the 



322 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 

reason that God looks at the light and says, it is good, just 
as the farmer when he looks at his unripe crops rejoices, be- 
cause he sees in them the ripened sheaves of grain and com- 
forts to his family, and the wealth that flows in to him. I 
need not tell you that all God's hopes are far beyond the 
reach of failure, but the drouth may come and ruin the 
farmer's prospects, the flood may come and waste it. God 
says, there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth 
and changes his mind. There is fresh joy at every one, but 
remember God gives joy over that which can nev^er be 
changed ; praise God forever. We will have other things to 
think about, other things to rejoice over. God bless you, 
and may this lesson sink into your hearts. 



THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 



The dear Lord does not want us to be discouraged at any 
stage of this journey. He wants us to be full of life and joy, 
for the reason, that it does not matter how little progress we 
make, the Lord is going to do his best for us where we are. 
It does not matter how low down we are ; it does not mat- 
ter how little we have, if we will not get up to where the 
Lord wants us to get, then he will come down to us where 
we are ; that is a sweet comfort. While the Lord wants us to 
have the very best things, yet if we will not have the very 
best, he will come down and do the best he can with us in 
the smallest things. So, there is joy and blessedness all 
along. 

Now, dear friends, there are a great many people that stop 
right short the very first day in this new creation ; get no 
further. I know them by thousands that never have gotten 
one inch further than the first day ; and I know people that 
have stopped the second day, and people that stopped at the 
third day. I cannot answer very much beyond that, be- 
cause the light is not as clear and distinct ; but these thou- 
sands and millions of Christians who come to Jesus for 
eternal life are found at every stage. And so, dear friends, 
let us remember that ; and now, what is going to happen ? 
The Lord is just coming down to all these children of his, 
and do his best for us on the platform that we ourselves 
shall choose ; and by the platform I mean this, that I can 
have just as much or just as little of this salvation as I choose. 



324 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 

I can be barely saved, as by fire, or go on to have an abun- 
dant entrance, and still more abundant entrance and 
most abundant entrance. I can go just where I like ; 
but remember, dear friends, that heaven corresponds 
to earth exactly ; let us never forget it for a moment. 
That is not to discourage us. Heaven takes us just 
where earth leaves us. We form our eternal character 
here and nowhere else. We cannot repair the mischief in 
the skies that is done here. God teaches us that most 
plainly. You cannot repair the mischief of earth after you 
get to heaven. It is impossible. You can choose your own 
plane, and that will be the plane on which you travel for- 
ever and forever, and you can never, by any means, get out 
of it. You see that is the thing that makes life so serious, 
while it is a thing full of joy, because God has given it and 
because God will do his very best for us on our chosen 
plane. Still, there are lots of blessings that we may miss. 
For as one star differs from another star in glory, so shall it 
be at the resurrection day. Remember all are not alike at 
all. Remember there are dominions and principalities and 
powers, and there are the barely saved. All these will you 
see in the heavenly world ; and these grades up yonder in 
heaven correspond to the characteristics that we have down 
here on earth exactly. Here I am. I come and confess 
the dear Jesus, take him as my Saviour. When you do that, 
I say truthfully the Lord will save you, God will take that 
soul to heaven. His sins are perfectly forgiven. Now he 
is an accepted child of the dear God, and his name is writ- 
ten in the Lamb's Book of Life never to be erased. It may 
be blotted, but never to be taken off. That is a saved 
soul. It will get all that it could possibly get by taking that 
step, for God's boundless blessings are in that step, and that 
soul when it enters heaven will go on a career of everlasting 






THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 325 

progress, but always in that plane ; let us understand that ; 
a career of everlasting progress, but you will never get up 
higher, never, never, never. You will go on in a career of 
everlasting progress on that plane forever. God will pour 
out the riches of his grace upon that plane ; you shall have 
it freely. If on the basis of this free salvation I say, Lord I 
will pass on to another grade, or to another degree, very 
well, I shall go up. Then, when I get to heaven it will be one 
everlasting progress of joy and blessedness on this higher 
plane. Then if I choose to go on and take the third degree, 
go a little higher on earth, and have the character of a third 
grade here on earth, then when I go to heaven it will be 
everlasting progress up yonder on this third chosen plane. 
If I want the fourth I go up higher, or if I want the fifth I 
go higher still. So, all God wants us to do is to go up to 
the higher place. He sits up yonder and says, come up 
here. Excelsior, that is the word, the still small voice of 
God speaks to us, <; My children, Excelsior." Ah, joy of 
joys ! as I take each step, when I know I have found an 
everlasting plane of blessedness. 

So you see, heaven takes us where earth leaves us. The 
mischief of earth can never be repaired in the skies. What 
we make ourselves down here we are forever and forever. It 
is an idiot dream that we shall be turned into heaven on ex- 
actly the same platform, just because Jesus Christ died up- 
on the cross for us. Not at all, for he not only died, but 
rose again. My friends, unless we know our Jesus in his 
full character we will not get the full blessing that God in- 
tends for us ; so justification is one thing and sanctification 
is another ; and I pray you to consider that God emphasizes 
this lesson first of all in the first chapter of Genesis, by teach- 
ing that the world was made in six days, thus revealing that 
in the new creation there are grades of creation ; there: is 



326 THE SECOND DAY OP CKEATIOtf. 

the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the. fifth, and the 
sixth days. If I get the first day of creation I am saved ; 
yes, indeed ; the light I have got will never go out ; and 
truly the light is good. The Lord says it is good. Wouldn't 
you rather go on to the sixth day, where the Lord looks 
over the finished thing and says, now, it is very good. 
Wouldn't you rather have God say to you it is good twice 
than it is good once ? Wouldn't you rather have him say to 
you it is good three times, than twice, or it is good four times 
than three times. Let us have this holy ambition to get the 
very best thing? Jesus died and rose again. Don't you see 
that is the thing that makes life so full of meaning, because 
every day and every hour I may be rising obedient to this 
heavenly call, " Excelsior," rising higher and higher, re- 
taining all that I get, never losing that ; for that is another 
sweet feature of this salvation, that what I get I keep, and 
what I gain that I may have. Remember that God is not 
forgetful, not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of 
love. He forgets nothing. When a child is born in the 
house it is born forever, and saved forever. God never for- 
gets that. If, on the other hand, I go on to the second or 
third or fourth platform, I can never lose it. I may fail to 
get to the fifth. I may stop right there and lose my am- 
bition and grow lazy, and never attain the fifth, but I will 
never in the eternal ages fail to have the fourth. What I 
gain I have ; what I have won I shall wear ; what I earn I 
shall have. You never take away wages earned because 
subsequently your servant turns out bad ; they only forfeit 
the wages they have not earned, they do not forfeit past 
wages. He is not unrighteous to forget our labor of love. 
My dear friends, if I never get another bit higher as long as 
I live, I know I have got my Eastern Kentucky crown. I 
have got my twenty-seven thousand souls laid up in heaven, 



THE SECOXD DAY OF CREATION. 327 

and the devil cannot touch them. I will have that as sure 
as God is God and pays honest wages for honest work. I 
went for the love of Jesus and did that for his dear sake. 
He knows it and I know it, and if I never get another soul, 
I have got that much. I do not mean to say I will stop 
there. I want half a million souls, and will have them by 
God's sweet grace, and I cannot rest on that except with 
joy, because God will never take it away from me. But that 
is simply furnishing me a standing point. I am not to sit 
down and sing myself to everlasting bliss, but to get up and 
go to work. Ah, my brother, this holy ambition to die a 
millionaire, this greed to get heavenly wealth does not de- 
grade. Oh, no. This longing to lay up treasures in heaven, 
to accumulate more and more, that is a noble ambition that 
will never wither your life, will never change a loving nature 
into a base hateful one, like avarice of earth. No, this is 
heavenly ambition, and the more you get, the more grandly 
your character will expand, the more enlarged your views 
will be. So, you see, dear friends, that while there is full en- 
joyment, while there is full joy for us all, there is always 
something more than we can get ; there is no sitting down 
for a while, but it is going on, it is progress, it is a journey 
of twain that does not end till the eternal journey ends. 

Well now, dear friends, never stop, and I think you can 
see the propriety of it at once ; I think you can see that it 
explains at once this lazy feeling. You had that when you 
confessed Jesus. Have you reaped the full benefit of that 
confession ? No, indeed. You have got a glorious heritage 
that never can be taken away from you, but oh, my brother, 
it only gives you a standing point from which you can look 
forwards and see fresh fields of conquest, and go on, and on; 
praise the Lord. 



328 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 

Now, we get to this second day of creation, that is this 
second day of grace, making the second stage in the divine 
life, and advance on the first place, for every one is an ad- 
vance upon the other. It is like going up a pair of stairs. 
The third is very far ahead of the second ; the fourth is far 
ahead of the third, and so on, until we rest in that blessed 
day when the morning and the evening was the seventh day, 
no darkness. But I want you to notice one particular thing, 
and that is the characteristic feature of the second day ; that 
God does not say it is good. Now, what God omits, my 
friends, is just as significant as what God inserts. There is 
this remarkable thing ; and it must strike you if you do not 
gallop over the Scripture. This second day has a mark 
upon it that no day in all the creation has. In thefirst, God 
saw the light and it was good. The third, God saw the dry 
land that it was good ; the fourth, He saw the lights that 
they were good ; the fifth, He saw the fishes that they were 
good, and the sixth, He saw the beasts of the earth, and 
man, and God saw it was very good. But here is this re- 
markable omission, that in the second day God preserves a 
steady silence. Now, that must have a meaning. What is 
the meaning of that ? I wish I could go to its fullest depths. 

The second day, if I interpret Scripture aright, answers 
to the thing that runs all through Scripture ; it answers to 
the second life in the Scripture. Let me here observe that in 
Genesis there are seven lives that correspond with the seven 
days of creation exactly. God ever going onward in these 
epochs of seven ; for there is a seven-fold order. There is 
Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, 
and there Genesis ends, for Genesis is the germ, the start- 
ing point, the ground plot of the Bible, and these seven 
lives, my friends, are the seven days of creation ; these suc- 
cessive advances in the divine life are stated dogmatically 



THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 329 

in the days of creation, and then afterwards stated in the 
fullest illustration, in the fullest detail in these seven lives. 
Now. dear friends, Adam is the first life. The only account 
that we have of Adam is that God forgave his sin and clothed 
him with a coat of skins ; put him outside of the garden ; 
and there he leaves him. There is no other history than 
that. Adam disappears from view. There is salvation in 
its simplest aspect ; God saving a soul. There is the sal- 
vation of the first day ; there is the light breaking in upon 
the darkness ; there is a man saved and nothing more ; but 
when I get to the second life, I have got a very different 
feature. This life of Abel is a lovely life. All the features 
of it are lovely. God saw the light, that it was good. Is 
not the light of the second day good ? Yes, it is beautiful. 
" God set the firmament in the heavens, and he divided the 
waters from the waters." The waters that are above are 
those pure, purged fresh waters that bring life and health 
and vigor to everything. They are the source of blessing. 
They are gone out of the bitter and unpurged salt sea. 
They rise to the fresh sweet clouds, and patter down in 
gentle rain, watering the tender herb, filling the streams, 
refreshing man and beast. No salt in them, no bitter in 
them. There is nothing purer than rain water, dear friends. 
That is the pure, purged water. God arranged in this 
second day to divide the waters from the waters ; but mark 
you, now, the characteristic feature of this puie, purged 
waters is not what we see in them to-day. To-day you 
gather them into wells, into cisterns ; to-day they make 
your crops to grow, and furnish you food and clothing ; but 
in those early days, dear friends, when the waters were 
divided from the waters, then the pure, unsalted, purged 
waters did nothing but just rise and weep themselves away 
down into the dark and cruel and relentless bitter sea ; there 



S30 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. ' 

was no man to refresh nor beast to refresh ; there was no 
herb nor grass nor growing flower ; there was no fish nor 
creeping thing ; there was nothing but these purged waters 
and the light that shone on them and made them beautiful. 
There was no good in them. They were very sweet ; just 
as sweet as they are to-day ; but there was nothing in them 
as far as utility was concerned ; and, dear mends, God is a 
utilitarian. Now I see the reason why he could not say that 
the second day was good ; not that the waters were not 
good ; they were. But they were good for nothing. Not 
good for nothing in themselves, but good for nothing as far 
r.s uses were concerned. The second day the pure purged 
waters stood above the firmament. They were good for 
nothing, because there was nothing that they could be good 
for. The clouds rose as they do to-day, but those grateful 
drops that are now the life of the world, sank again to the 
salt and bitter waters. God could not say that it was good. 
He never says that except when it is good. He may admire 
the light, but when the light is wasted he is bound to main- 
tain a steady silence as to it. You see the reason why it 
corresponds with the second life. The peculiarity of that 
second life was this, that it was a beautiful life ; none more 
sweet and beautiful than the life of Abel, but it went out 
under the murderer's blow. It was a waste of time ; a life 
that perished before it came to maturity ; a life that was 
stricken down and came to nothing, that is as far as the 
earth is concerned. We are not talking about the heaven, 
we are talking about the earth. A life cut off is a life 
wasted. You need not tell me that it is according to God's 
appointment when I educate my daughter or my son up to 
twenty-one, and she or he dies in the fulness of youthful 
vigor, just turning into sweet womanhood, or just rising into 
strong manhood, you need not tell me God takes away a 



THE SECOND DAY OF CKEATIOX. 331 

life like that ; he never does. It is a life blotted out, and 
the instinct of man recognizes it. I saw an illustration of 
this not long ago upon a tombstone in a graveyard, and I 
knew the dear man over whom the tombstone was erected. 
It was the cry of an anguished mother who had laid away 
her son in the bloom of early manhood, just as he had 
developed into everything that was bright and beautiful and 
lovely to her. And the cry of that broken heart was 
set in the marble. So and so ; born so and so ; died so 
and so ; " Only jive- an d-twenty" It was a cry of a broken 
heart. Ah, brother, do you think God does that ? I do not. 
I do not believe a word of it, any more than I believe he 
takes hold of a little baby ten days old or ten weeks old 
or ten months old and wrenches them in pain and agony, 
limb from limb. Brother, do you believe that is God ? If 
you do let us part company. I will not walk with you one 
step on such a devil's road as that. God does not approve 
of this sort of thing. Never has and never will. 

As concerning the second day, the second life, dear 
friends, there is a steady silence. A light that is quenched 
by the murderous hand of a fellow man is a life put out, a 
life wasted. It does not matter how God may bring good 
out of evil ; that is another thing. I know that Abel, being 
dead, to-day speaketh. God overruled the murderous club, 
and sent the song going of the ransomed in the sky ; for 
Abel was the first one that ever struck the note that shall 
give heaven its gladness in the eternal ages. There is no 
thought here that God will bring good out of evil. Don't 
you affirm that God killed Abel. God clears his skirts of 
that whole thing in saying, " Cain was of that wicked one," 
and slew his brother. And yet men say, "It hath pleased 
the Lord to take away our brother at twenty-five." Oh, 
those devil's lies, how they float around, as thick as autumn 



332 THE SECOND DAY OE CREATION. 

leaves. The world is so full of lying, because the devil is 
the God of it ; don't you forget that you are walking in an 
atmosphere of falsehood. Don't you forget the devil is the 
" God of this world ; the prince of the power of the air." 

Dear friends, this water that never does any good, the 
water, though pure and sweet as it may be, and lovely as it 
may be, wastes itself, weeps itself away in everlasting tears 
into the black and bitter sea, God never says it is good. 
He cannot say it is good. This corresponds not only to 
the second life in Genesis, but it also corresponds to the en- 
tire picture that God gives us of Israel. Redeemed by the 
blood, brought out of Egypt, brought into the wilderness. 
There must needs be a wilderness to go through ; that is all 
right — a wilderness in which God wants us to learn our de- 
pendence on him, and go on our way rejoicing, and get 
through it in eleven days. These miserable creatures laid 
their bones there. They are a redeemed people. You will 
lose the meaning of the Bible entirely if you think that the 
Israelites who laid their bones in the wilderness were lost ; 
they were not lost ; they were as much the people of God 
and of Israel as Caleb and Joshua were. For forty years 
they traveled, until they laid their sinful bones in the wild- 
erness. God walked with them ; hefellowshipped with them 
as best he could, not in the place he wanted them to be, not 
in the goodly land that flowed with milk and honey. He 
wanted them to live there ; he wants everybody to live in a 
fine house, but if they will not live in fine houses in the land 
that flows with milk and honey, he does his best with them 
on their elected plane. And so he came and pitched his 
tent where they pitched their tents and led the way. It is 
our place to follow Jesus. But when we are in the wilder- 
ness, in nothingness, that is, the spiritual rock follows to 
keep life in us ; but that is not God's place. That spiritual 



THE SECOND DAY OE CREATION. 333 

rock that followed them was Christ. Let us understand the 
lesson, for these are signs. Israel chose the lower plane. 
When the land was ready for them, when God had 
ordered the land for them, this w r as their self-elected 
place, and they traveled until they laid their bones 
there, and there were only two who were elected to go into 
the land of Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan they came. 
As it is written, " There are many called, but few are 
chosen. " Ah, brother, you may be among the chosen, 
honored by his grace to-day ; may a holy ambition be in 
you to be among the chosen. Oh, God says it is good to 
be honored. Surely, life is sweet ; I know that as well as 
you do, but then it is so much more pleasant, it is so much 
better to go on and get the best thing. Remember that is 
the third place where the Lord brings out this solemn lesson 
of this second day ; and we have another in the dear Ruth 
gleaning in the fields of Boaz. She missed her place to be 
the wife of his bosom, the mistress of his home, the sharer 
of everything that he had, just through ignorance ; if you 
say, that is all right, I grant you it was through ignorance, 
but we can make wilful choice as well. The choice of Israel 
was ignorant at first and afterwards wilful. Her choice of 
the harvest field, where she got an ephah of barley, to keep 
life in her own body, and have a little to spare for her 
mother-in-law, was like some Christians of the second day. 
Ah, my dear friends, Ruth had a perfect right to be the 
bride, the spouse of Boaz, all the time she was gleaning in 
the harvest field, and as soon as she found it out she went 
right into the house and there was no trouble at all. Ah, 
brother, I pray God you may take your rights. My sister, 
do not stay in the harvest field when it is yours to be mis- 
tress of great broad acres where you are now working and 
toiling. Oh, my brothers and sisters, won't you learn this ? 



334 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATIOK. 

I see it in another place. Mary and Martha are types of 
just the same thing. Martha careful and cumbered about 
much serving. I would not be surprised if Martha lived and 
died Martha. She chose that place. Mary chose another 
place ; that was at the feet of Jesus, to know more of him, 
recognize him in his true character as the Son of God ; but 
going far past that, far out of the sight of that, calling him 
the Son of God and sitting at his feet. Ah, that is the por- 
tion that you should have. Let us go on to another place. 
I think I can point you out another type. We have it in the 
7th of Romans, when the blessed Paul went over that road, 
the second day in that creation. I have been over it, too, 
but I am seeking the Scriptures now. Hear the blessed 
Paul : " To will is present with me, but how to perform that 
which is good I know not. The evil which I would not 
that I do ; the good that I would that I do not. I find a 
law in my members warring against the law of my mind, 
bringing me into captivity." What about your desires ? 
They are all right, " I love the law of God after the inward 
man." But I find this law in my members that is stronger 
than that, that brings me into captivity to the law only 
which is in my members. " Oh, wretched man that I am, 
who shall deliver me from this body of death ? So, beloved, 
we have in all these, types, and I will not go any further, 
though I could point you out dozens of them. We will stop 
right here, for in the mouths of these few witnesses this 
thing will be established or it cannot be established at all. 

Notice this second day in the new creation. Here in the 
7th of Romans we have it given ; good desires defeated like 
the purged waters rising into the upper skies weeping them- 
selves away. " Oh, wretched man that I am, wanting to do 
good, cannot do it ; desiring what is right, failing at every 
attempt, every effort proving abortive, falling back, fainting 



THE SECOND DAY Or CEEATIOX. 335 

and spent every time you try to reach your ideal. Your 
ideal is right enough, praise God for that. You attempt to 
reach it, and the first thing you know you fall back. It is 
the old story of the heathen rolling the rock up to the top 
of the hill and as soon as he got it there down it came to the 
bottom. You want to do what is right, but it does not come 
to anything. Ah, my friends, it is that stream of water that 
is ever rising to quench the thirst till it gets to the upper lip, 
and just as you are about to open your mouth, the waters 
sink to your feet again. Oh, this life ; I know what it is ! 
"Wanting to do good — I have tried so hard to do good, and 
God is the witness of that, God who has sighed and wept for 
me ; and the devil is the witness too — the devil who laughed 
and scorned. I tried so hard to be a good man, and I never 
was. I lived in the 7th of Romans for five and thirty years. 
Ah, my friends, that is that weary stage where I say, "the 
good that I would I do not." I say to-day — and God knows 
how true it is — " The good I would I do not ; the evil that I 
would not I do ; " praise the Lord. "I can do all things 
through Christ who strengtheneth me." I no longer say, " I 
see a law in my members warring against the law of my 
mind." But I say, by God's sweet grace I bring my body 
under subjection. That is just the difference. Xo longer 
is there a law in my members warring against the law of my 
mind, and bringing me into captivity, but, on the contrary, I 
sing with joy every day and every night. The law of the 
sweet life in Christ Jesus my Lord hath made me free, hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death, and I go on my 
way rejoicing, shouting thanks be unto God who always 
causeth us to triumph through our Lord Jesus Christ. The 
world is not dead, the flesh is not dead, the devil is not dead; 
but I have got the whip hand of them all. They who once 
put me down so that I could not rise ; they who each one 



336 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATIOX. 

by itself was always stronger than I, who each one by itself 
was always too strong for me. now my friends, the three of 
them cannot get me down. They can combine, and in the 
name of the Lord I can put them all under my feet. That 
is the difference. Do you know the difference, beloved ? I 
have passed beyond the second day ; I have left the wilder- 
ness behind me, that land of unavailing marches, I have 
left that ; I have got into the land that flows with milk and 
honey. I have sat down under my vine and fig tree, and 
here I am, with none to harass or make me afraid. Thank 
God the land flows with milk and honey. My food is 
changed. It is no longer manna, but the old corn of the 
land. I have entered into a house without the trouble of 
building one. I obtained patrimony that I did not have the 
trouble of w r orking for, I have fields that I till not, trees that 
I planted not, and I eat the fruit of the richest and most 
luscious fruit. Canaan is a good land to live in. I am liv- 
ing there, as God lives in heaven. Do you suppose I do 
not know the difference between Canaan and the wilderness 
after w r alking in that wilderness for thirty-five years ? Do 
you suppose that I do not know the difference between be- 
ing in the field or out of it ? No, my friends, what I know 
I know ; and one who has had this experience knows exactly 
what he is talking about. I know what the second day of 
the new creation is. I was in it for five and thirty years. 
Thank God I am over it. I give you the benefit of my best 
experience, warning you that God wants you to tide over 
this second day. The wilderness is not the place God wants 
you to abide in. God passes us all through there. But 
this experience will be turned into joy and gladness if, in- 
stead of failing there, we learn the lessons God wants to 
teach us, that is absolute helplessness. How can we learn 
it unless he takes us out into the land where there is no 



THE SECOKD DAY OF CBEATIOK. 337 

wealth. These poor disobedient ones that laid their bones 
there, instead of learning that lesson, sweetly saying, here 
we are, there is no bread, but here we are, and here is God 
and that is all you want — -they would have got through if 
they had done that — God wanted to bring them simply to 
lean on him. If we learn not that, we are lost to usefulness, 
lost to blessing, lost to everything that can follow life. Let 
us learn the lesson of obedient helplessness ; let us learn to 
lean on him sweetly and simply. You may be in the wilder- 
ness land, but you can learn it without living there for thirty- 
five years as I did. It is only eleven days' march. God 
wants you to move quickly across it, and every day added 
is a day in the desert. Though the sands be burning to the 
feet, and the desert sun be hot overhead, God will make it 
a blessing to you if you will let it be so. You can wander 
and lay your bones there, and you can never raise a grape 
there while you live. Canaan is the land of grapes. There 
is nothing but sand in the desert. Jesus says, now you are 
clean through the word I have spoken unto you ; abide in 
me, and you will bring forth fruit. You cannot bring fruit 
until you get to the land of Canaan. So in this second day 
of the new creation, almost universally, men fail, where even 
Paul failed. Ah, this sad, sad second life. There is where 
the beautiful Abel had his life quenched in blood. This is 
the second day where the purged waters weep themselves 
away in unavailing tears ; this is the 7th of Romans life, my 
friends. God calls it a purification. God cannot call that 
good, the days of purification in the wilderness. I ask 
the question kindly, as one who has had a great deliverance, 
as one who remained in that land so much longer than I 
want you to linger there ; I ask you, brother, sister, are you 
in the wilderness yet ? Do you say, " The things that I 
would I do not ; the things that I would not, that I do ? " 



338 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION. 

Have you been saying that longer than the eleven days ? 
Then, beloved, I tell you what you do, before God. You 
may not think it, but I tell you you are wandering around 
through a weak, useless, fruitless life. Oh, my friend, God 
may delight in the life that is in you ; but he cannot say, 
a thing is good if it is not. He is a utilitarian God. 
Brother, won't you come ? Oh, that you would get over 
this second day. God bless you. 



THE THIRD DAY OF CREATION. 



The analogy between the natural life and the spiritual life 
is a very exact one. If we could only see this more dis- 
tinctly it would remove much that encumbers our lives and 
retards our usefulness. It is a common thing to say that a 
person is not a Christian at all because he is so inconsistent, 
does not bring forth the fruits of the divine life ; nobody can 
see that he ever did produce any fruit, not a particle of it ; 
and therefore they say, "Why, such a person cannot be a 
Christian." That is a great mistake. There is many a 
fruitless tree in the world. Fruit-bearing does not come on 
in the new creation until the third day. Jesus Christ says, 
you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. 
Now, abide in me, and you shall bring forth much fruit. 
Fruit-bearing is a thing of going on, but many for lack of 
the fruit-bearing life say that there is no life there. That 
would be just as great a blunder as to say that because a 
child is a sick child, therefore there is no life there. The 
remedy for this is just to open our eyes and see what God 
has scattered around us. It is to open our eyes and see our 
life. Here is a feeble life, an existence, that nobody can 
deny to be life. It is a feeble and helpless child, no doubt; 
it has a feeble, listless life with just strength enough to 
breathe and open its eyes and see to take in its food ; and 
so far as the functions of life are concerned, why it is as use- 
less as a bit of wood ; and yet that life goes on, wearily, 
slowly goes on, and at last in a few years it just fades out as 



340 THE THIRD DAY OE CREATION. 

it came. It came upon the scene in that feeble, fluttering 
condition, and it goes off the scene in a feeble, fluttering 
condition. Would you deny that there is life there ? No- 
body would do that. Then, again, I see life in another 
form : a life that is intermittent, a life that seems to struggle 
and struggle and struggle against the evil that is within it, 
and the power that is trying to break it down ; and it fights 
and makes a gallant fight, and comes up to the front ever 
and anon, and then falls back, beaten, beaten, beaten, into 
bed again. Then tries again and gets bravely up and goes 
staggering around with a fearful headache, shattered nerves, 
but still with a deal of courage tries to keep itself up to the 
front ; then succumbs, and then gets up again, and then suc- 
cumbs, and then bravely gets up and makes another trial, 
and then goes to bed again. How pitiful that is ; how 
touching it is, this struggle of life against disease ; the sad- 
dest thing in the world, my friends, a life beaten back at 
every point ; a life that, so far as usefulness is concerned, is 
almost a failure ; yet it is vastly better than that listless 
thing that made no attempt, that just breathed and slept, an 
existence that absolutely and deliberately yielded to the 
triumphs of the power that was bearing down upon it, until 
at last it became more and more feeble and went out alto- 
gether. But here is another life that will not succumb, that 
bravely goes to the front, and fights and fights, and lasts 
longer than the others. It fights so hard, and yet it never 
does anything, and by-and-bye there comes a great sweep of 
the opposing power, and the will goes down, and all power 
of resistance fades out, and the poor life is swept away into 
the eternal ocean. Have you never seen such lives as that 
in actual existence? You can see them by the hundreds any 
day. And there is another life that comes to the front, 
comes boldly on and bears back this power of evil that is 



TIIE THIED DAT OF CBEATION. 341 

coming against it, with a strong and steadfast hand, beats it 
back and holds the situation ; and at last drives it out of 
doors altogether, and then it goes on in its steadfast way. 
We call that good life on earth. You have seen that oc- 
casionally ; not often. The people that have that life are 
the few that are chosen. The people that have the medi- 
cated life are the many that are called ; for, now, dear 
friends, taking the thing which is unseen instead of the thing 
that is seen, God wants us to understand the spiritual lesson. 
God wants us to just go beneath the surface, and find the 
analogy to this natural life. 

Coming to the spiritual life, I find a person that is born 
again, that has a feeble, not even an intermittent life, but 
that feeble life that is breath and nothing more, and one 
day it is snuffed out and disappears like a snowflake melt- 
ing upon the stream. Its existence produces no commotion 
in the world. It just comes and goes — fades away like the 
gentle dews of morning before the rising sun. I have seen 
others, brave souls that did not want to yield, brave 
hearts that had an ideal and said, I will struggle for 
it ; brave hearts that wanted to cast out the evil that 
was within them and fought for it ; but they fought and 
struggled ineffectually. They were brave. They did 
not lack the energy. They did not lack the will. 
The will was present with them, but how to perform 
that which was good they never, never found. So, their 
lives were passed in a weary struggle, only to be beaten ; 
with no shout of triumph on their lips, saying thanks be 
unto God who always causes us to triumph through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. But, they say, " Oh, my Lord, I have tried 
to be a Christian, and here I am to-day. I have been in 
the church five, ten, fifteen years ; what have I done ? My 
God, is this the life of a Christian ; and I have tried so 



342 THE THIED DAY OF CREATION. 

hard, fought so courageously, have risen early, and I have 
burned the midnight oil. My God, is it this to be a Chris- 
tian ? Is there nothing better than that ? Is it this ever- 
lasting struggle in which I am to be forever beaten ? Is it 
this that my soul cleaveth to ?" Do you know anything 
about that ? I do, I am talking about something the very 
mention of which goes like a knife right through and through 
my heart. Do you know anything about it, sister dear, 
brother dear? I think all of us who are converted know 
something about this second day's existence, this journeying 
in the wilderness, this marching where you can gain noth- 
ing ; sand, sand, desert sand ; soul cleaving to the duty, 
and the dust so very deep. Then, dear friends, I have seen 
such lives as this where the soul just steps out of this weak- 
ening, unstable state of existence, where nothing is settled, 
where nothing is established, the soul at once steps out into 
an existence where it is no longer tossed to and fro by 
every wind of doctrine, but, as Peter says, is strengthened, 
settled and established. : ' The things that I would I do ;" 
thank God. The things that I would not I do not ; praise 
the Lord. " I can do all things through Christ who strength- 
eneth me ;" thanks be unto God who always causeth me 
to triumph through my Lord Jesus Christ, walking worthy 
of the Father unto all pleasing, adorning the doctrine of 
God in all things, abiding in Jesus Christ and bringing forth 
much fruit. Ah, brother, these are Scriptures as well as the 
other, and I pray that they may sink deep into your hearts, 
not as passages of Scripture repeated in your hearing by one 
who knows the meaning of them, but, brethren, sisters, pas- 
sages of Scripture that you can say, I have tried and proved, 
and found to be true myself, asd I know what they mean ; 
not a bunch of the grapes of Eschol brought to your tent 
door by some one else, but sitting under your own vine and 



THE THIED DAY OF CBEATIOK. 343 

fig tree with none to molest and make you afraid ; that is 
what I want you to know ; that is what God wants you to 
know, That is making progress in the divine life, and when 
you come to this third day that tells out this story where 
the wilderness wandering is over, friends, where the second 
life and the secondary are over, God no longer maintains a 
steadfast silence, but he breaks out as if to make up for lost 
time, and says, " It is good," yes, indeed, it is good, and lie 
said it twice. God speaks twice on this third day ; praise 
the Lord for that. Dear friends, there is progress, re- 
member, in this divine life, and oh, what I long for you is 
that you may just take a step up. If you only knew the 
true significance of life ; if you only knew what a precious 
thing it is : if you only knew that every day you might 
step up a little higher, and when you are there you will 
never go back, you will stay there ; there will be your plat- 
form through all eternity, then the next day you can step up 
a little higher, and that again you will never lose in the ages 
of eternity ; you have settled that much anyhow for ever 
and ever. Do you not see what significance there is in life ? 
Stepping up a little higher, and obtaining a higher platform 
on which you shall go through everlasting progress in the 
ages of eternity. What I want you to do is to follow the 
dear Jesus as best you can, follow the Lamb wdieresoever 
he goes, and then you will get the best wherever he goes. 
If God will but use any word I say to lift you a little 
higher, that is all I want — a little higher, for that word " a 
little higher " means a little higher in the everlasting ages, 
not simply for three score years and ten, and simply an ad- 
vance in happiness down here; that is a little thing in com- 
parison. It is a great thing in itself, but it lifts you higher 
in eternity. Oh, may my words find lodgment in your 
hearts, and never be forgotten* We have got to another 



344 THE THIRD DAY OF CEEATIOK. 

day in which God breathes freely again, and says, with ex- 
ultant joy, " It is good." Praise the Lord, it is good. 

What is it now that happens ? You see, thus far we have 
this wide waste of bitter waters, producing nothing, defy- 
ing life to live in it — it is death, that is what it is, death 
covering the world. God has brought the light in upon the 
darkness ; thank God for that. That is so much gained. 
God has set the firmament between the waters beneath 
and the waters above, and a certain portion of these dark, 
bitter waters, purged of their saltness, rise up into the 
clouds, and fall in gentle showers, but still they do noth- 
ing, water nothing, refresh nothing, give life to nothing. 
They weep themselves away in sweet, pure and gentle tears 
down into this ocean, waste and bitter, to be again raised 
up and go the everlasting round. If you get no further 
than that, then the will is present with you, but how to 
perform that which is good you find not. Good and de- 
feated desires all the way, and these attempts to beat back 
the power that is coming against you, you always fail in it. 
Ah, brother, come on. Let us get out of that. Let us have 
a purpose that means something ; let us have a purpose 
that has its way ; let us have a will that is triumphant ; so 
that this constant struggle that must go on within us as long 
as the spirit and flesh survive, that this ceaseless struggle 
shall be a ceaseless victory ! Come with the dear Savior ! 
In Jesus' name, come with me to the third day, and the 
hopes of your heart w T ill be fulfilled. On the third day the 
"dry " appears — not the dry land ; that is a delusion. And 
God said, " Let the dry appear," because it is the word dry 
he wants you to understand. You will see that little word 
"land" is in letters that can't stand up (italics), showing 
that they are not God's. All of God's letters stand up 
straight. God said ? "Let the dry appear," and the dry did 



THE THIRD DAY OF CREATIOX. 345 

appear. What did he do ? And God said, as soon as this 
dry appeared, " Let the seas be gathered ; let the waters be 
gathered into a place by themselves ; let us have thus an 
everlasting distinction. There is the dry land, and there 
are the waters waste and bitter yet — unpeopled yet. There 
is not a fin that plies in that great ocean yet. By-and-by 
God will change that into life, but everything in its season, 
beloved. Do not be in a hurry ; God is not in a hurry. 
What he wants now is the "dry." And God said, "Let 
the dry appear." When God speaks he speaks with a voice 
of authority. He speaks, dear friends, and it is done ; he 
commands, and it responds to his order, because the earth 
is listening to him ; that is all. Faith, remember, cometh 
by hearing. It is not omnipotent power that goes out with- 
out a cause. My friends, it is no almighty flat that goes out 
without a cause ; but the listening earth has heard the word 
of God ; that is the reason that the dry appears. The light 
has heard the Word of God ; that is the reason the light 
appears. Lie speaks to be heard. Faith cometh by hear- 
ing, and hearing by the Word of God, and so, dear friends, 
we have this remarkable thing : that the dry appears, and 
the waters now are gathered into places by themselves ; and 
the gathering together of the waters God calls seas. They 
retained their name forever. God calls the gathering to- 
gether of the waters, seas, and by-and-bye he will produce 
life in them, but they are seas, and will be seas to the end 
of time. Seas in Hebrew means agitations, tumults and 
motions ; that is the nature of the sea ; that will be the na- 
ture of the sea to the bitter end. We will find the spiritual 
meaning of all that, but let us first see what the letter is. I 
want you to see the thing that is done. This dry ap- 
pears, and that is the barrier that keeps these seas 
in their places, so that they shall never overflow the earth 



346 THE THIRD DAT OF CREATION. 

again. That has gone out by a settled decree. They are 
gathered into places by themselves — not annihilated; that is 
a mistake. Some of our holiness people have made this 
mistake. There was never a greater mistake made by men 
or women. There is no place this side of heaven where 
there are no seas. Seas, my friends, means this everlasting 
tumult and agitation, this old nature that is within you, and 
will ever be in you to the end, the flesh that struggles 
against, that is ever opposed to God ; the carnality that is 
not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can it be, 
and the best you can expect of that is to bring it down, to 
bring it under subjection, for tumult it will be, agitation it 
will be, until this corruption shall put on incorruption. 
When I get to heaven there is no more sea, thank God. 
Don't you get ahead of Scripture. Here is a radical mis- 
take of thousands and thousands of our holiness people. 
Here is the rock upon which so many have met shipwreck. 
They believe that the flesh is dead, and they say it is dead ; 
and when it shows signs of life they say, oh, no, it is dead. 
They become dishonest before God ; and so the devil has 
his own way, and we go down upon that rock. Friends, 
that is what always happens when we go beyond Scripture. 
God never says that the flesh is destroyed, never says the 
flesh is dead. Paul keeps it under and brings it into subjec- 
tion, and does it continually. That is all that a redeemed 
soul can do down here on earth. We have, however, on 
our side, thank God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and 
over against these stands the triple alliance, the world, the 
flesh and the devil. The world confronts the Father, the 
flesh confronts the Spirit, and the devil confronts the Son. 
The three are opposed to each other, and so the warfare 
goes on. Oh, brother, the flesh is no more dead than the 
devil is dead. If a man wen* upon the theory because he 



THE THIED DAY OP C2EATI0N". 347 

was a very happy man, that the devil was dead, oh, dear 
friends, what an awful snare he would fall into. The world, 
the flesh and the devil are our lively opponents, and we 
must be prepared to resist these opposing powers by calling 
to our aid the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Confront the 
"devil" in the power of the Son of God ; meet the " flesh" 
in the strength of the Holy Spirit, and all that you can do 
with regard to the " world " is, to be "born of God." This, 
my friends, will secure you an easy victory. There is 
abundant encouragement around us. I would like to get 
rid of the devil personally, and I wish he was dead a thous- 
and times. I wish there was no flesh, but wishing will not 
put them out of the way. I am not going to quarrel with 
the good fight of faith. I will thank God for his sweetest 
grace that gives me the power in the Father and in the Son 
and in the Holy Ghost to beat them all day long, and txhree 
hundred and sixty-five days in the year ; never let us weary 
of the good fight of faith. It is not a weary fight of faith if 
you are always gaining a victory. I do not mind how much 
I fight if I can always get the victory. I thank God I have 
gained victories for five and a half years, and I would not 
go back to the old condition, not for fifty thousand worlds 
to-day. Let me tell you how these victories have been 
secured. On the 25th day of August, 1876, taking the 
statement made by St. Paul in the fourth chapter of He- 
brews, "We which have believed do enter into rest," as a 
literal fact, I made the following entry on my old Bagster 
Bible : " By grace through faith I have entered the rest the 
Lord promises to believing ones." My life had been one of 
unrest. One day I found out that by faith I entered into 
rest, and I said, I know I can believe, and I will let the Lord 
do the rest ; I said, " Lord, I do believe," and I went and 
wrote it down. I felt no great overturning, overwhelming 



348 THE THIRD DAY OF CREATION. 

wave of peace and joyfulness, not a bit of it ; but I had 
something a great deal better, I had the word of God, I had 
Hebrews, 4th chapter and 3d verse: "We which have be- 
lieved do enter into rest ;" and I said, in the face of man 
and devil, "I have entered into the rest the Lord promises 
to believing ones," not to " feeling ones," but to believing 
ones ; not to working ones, but to believing ones. " He 
can and will keep what I commit to him until that day." 
You see it was forever. It was no experiment I tried with 
the good Lord. It was not, " I will try and see whether I 
get rest, and if I do not I will go back to my old way." I 
enlisted for the war, made an unconditional surrender. No 
going back ! sink or swim ! live or die ! survive or perish, 
here I am, for God alone ! I entered into his rest. That 
was crossing the Jordan. Since then I have not been tossed 
about. Since then everything has been settled, strength- 
ened, established. Since then I have walked worthy of my 
father unto all pleasing. I have adorned the doctrine of 
God my Saviour in all things. Since then the ceaseless 
struggle that has gone on within me has been a ceaseless 
vctory, praise the Lord. 

Well, dear friends, now what happens ? and how does it 
happen ? The seas are gathered — these tumults, these no- 
tions, these agitations that will be in you as long as life 
lasts, are gathered together into places by themselves. God 
has settled it by a perpetual decree. God has declared by 
another decree, and has ordained that out of the ground 
everything shall grow. There has nothing grown yet, but 
now you have got ground, it is the easiest thing in the world 
for things to grow ; and so, behold on the surface of this 
" dry " — we will come to talk about the dry directly, I do not 
want you to forget it — on the surface of this " dry," the 
green grass first covers the earth with a carpet ; then the ten- 



THE THIKD DAY OF CREATION. 349 

der herb springs up, the herb bearing its fruit and bearing its 
flowers ; then a stately tree arises ; for God's work is always 
from small to great, always from darkness to light. Every step 
in life is from small things to greater things. Then, lo ! the 
stately tree appears that bears fruit which bears a seed, and 
after it is gone and that seed scattered in a thousand ways, 
they covered the earth with what we see now ; the lovely 
green grass, these beauteous herbs, these springing flowers, 
these stately forests. The world is crowned with beauty 
and with verdure. We have the same old bitter seas, but 
the waters are confined in their places, and then on the 
" dry," God has ordained that out of the ground everything 
shall grow, nowhere else. Out of that comes the herb, the 
fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind. The next thing God 
teaches man to do after the third day, is to deny ungodli- 
ness and worldly lusts ; that is the negative part. The pos- 
itive is, that we live soberly, righteously and godly in this 
present age. There is always negative and positive life. 
The first thing God taught me was to lay aside the sin that 
so easily beset me. The first token I had was this : I had a 
very bad devilish temper, that had ravaged my life, and 
made myself and family unhappy for thirty-five years. My 
mother had it before me. I got it by honest descent. She 
had a red head, and I had a red head ; and if you have got 
red hair you have got the devil's own temper. I got it in 
the course of nature, and got rid of it in grace. And that devil 
is cast out of me ; but notice that is only the negative side. 
These seas are only confined in their places — these hateful 
tempers, these damnable tempers, these earth-born tempers 
that drag you down, that is the first part of this blessed third 
day. These are seas confined in their places by themselves 
so that they shall no more overflow the earth. But the posi- 
tive appears closely upon the heels of the negative. Right 



350 THE THIRD DAY OF CEEATIO^. 

after denying ungodliness and worldly lusts comes living 
soberly, righteously and godly in this present age ; right 
with yourself, right with your fellow man, right towards God; 
that is the positive side ; that is the grass, that is the herb, 
that is the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, that is the 
positive side. Do you suppose God is going to take these 
hateful things out, and leave a vacuum there ? No ! for grace, 
like nature, abhors that. That is a principle in grace as 
well as in philosophy, and so in place of these hateful, hor- 
rible monsters of hell, come beautiful things that afterwards 
appear on the ground ; but first of all comes the herb, the 
grass, the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind ; praise the 
Lord for that, for this negative and positive always suc- 
ceeding each other in God's appointed time. That is the 
life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God. It is so dif- 
ferent from my old life. If you were to ask me to go back 
to my old life that I lived seven years ago, or to have both 
hands cut off, both feet cut off, both eyes put out, both 
ears stopped, I would say, let me be maimed all over. I 
would not dare to go back to where I was in the Chris- 
tian life seven years ago — nothing could induce me ; for if 
you take away my eyes, my ears, my hands, my feet, I have 
got Jesus left. Jesus is the power of life, Jesus is perpet- 
ual joy. No, dear friends, I could not go back there ; I 
could not live there, for the soul that has lived with Him 
once, that has walked in fellowship with him day and night, 
so that where you go he leads you, when you sleep he keeps 
you, and when you awake he still talks to you, cannot go 
back to that life ; it is death outright, and I could not live 
there. 

Oh, that I could speak a word that would become with 
you a desire to go on with this blessed third day. * * * 
On the 25th of August, 1876, these earth-born affinities 



THE THIED BAY OP CEEATIOX. 351 

dropped out of me because they could not hold me any 
longer ; I had something so much better, and not only did 
these drop off of me, but everything else. I went right out 
of a barren ministry into a successful one. In a few months 
after this blessed victory I first commenced working in 
Moody's enquiry rooms, and then saw that God had called 
me to a wider sphere than that. Mr. Ransom had just fur- 
nished me a handsome house and an income of $4,600.00. 
I said, good brother, I must go. He was too good a man to 
want to hold me. He saw what had happened, and said, 
" The will of the Lord be done ! " And in four days I was 
off to Kentucky, and since then my daughter and I have 
been going. She joined me a month or two after that, and 
we have been going ever since. Do you suppose I would 
go back to the old barren life I led before I knew how to 
trust and rest? I would rather be dead than preach the gos- 
pel without winning souls. I have an insatiable thirst for 
souls. Souls converted are the legitimate wages of my min- 
istry, and if I continue a faithful servant in the Lord's ser- 
vice, I may reasonably expect increased remuneration. I 
mav come up to Moody some of these days, though I hope 
he will go on, and keep ahead of me. I am not ambitious 
except to do God's blessed will. I am not ambitious to get 
ahead of anybody. But, dear friends, that is the way God 
makes our lives to blossom and bud, first the grass, then the 
herb, then the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind. Praise 
the dear Lord's name. Ah, brethren, that is the beauty of 
it ; as you go on and God gives you better wages and this 
spiritual life develops, this fruitfulness of it comes out by 
abiding with Jesus Christ, a fruit tree yielding fruit after its 
kind. I can go on day after day, and drop these seeds, and 
not know where they go to. If a bad habit brings a thou- 
sand in its train, why does not a good habit ? It does. You 



352 THE THIRD BAY OF CREATION. 

and I know full well how one habit brings a thousand in its 
train. I do not see half that God does through me — not the 
thousandth part of it. It would make a fool of me. God 
knows too well how to train his children to let them see all 
the good they are doing, but I know that God keeps a book 
of remembrance, not only a Book of Life in which my name 
was written, but a book of remembrance in which every- 
thing is written and the outcome of everything, and I think 
wherever a seed is scattered that produces another tree that 
in its turn yields seeds after its kind, going on. God has 
got a boo^ of remembrance where it is all put down every 
day. I have a deep interest in the unfolding of that book of 
remembrance. Praise the Lord whose seed is in us. I 
know enough to fill me with joy and peace, and not to spoil 
me. God is wise and prudent with his children. Brother, 
the unfolding joy is all reserved for the happy day when the 
book shall be opened, the book of remembrance in which 
everything is put down, the sprouting of every seed shall be 
unfolded, and I will have the capacity to take it in. 

I was working not long ago in Green County, Kentucky, 
and I noticed there was a big yellow plum in Green County. 
If you ever go there in the plum season — about this season 
of the year, you will find the whole face of the earth covered 
with yellow plums. I went into General Hobson's office, 
and I said, " How does it happen you have so many yellow 
plums down in this country ? " Said he, " Do you see that 
old stump ? My grandfather planted that tree when he 
came from Virginia ; he brought one seed in his pocket, 
and stuck it down in the front yard, when this was all 
wilderness, and that is the parent of every yellow plum in 
Green County." Whose seed is in us — birds picked them 
and men ate them and animals carried them away, and it 
was spread until the face of the country is covered. 



THE THIRD DAY OF OuEATIOX. 353 

Whose seed is in us. That divine life, how it fills my 
soul with joy ! I can sleep, but the work does not sleep. 
I can sleep, but the seed sprouts. I had a friend in your 
community, that I used to think was a very odd sort of 
fellow. Whenever he ate even an apple, he would carefully 
take the core out of his mouth, make a whole in the ground, 
and put it in and cover it up. When he ate a plum or a 
pear he would always scrape out a little hole and put it in 
and cover the seed up. Said I, " What do you do that for ?" 
Well, he said, " I am planting it for somebody else. If 
somebody had not planted this tree thirty years ago, I would 
not be eating its fruit." I think a man that carefully does 
that, and does it with a good intent as he did, plants a seed 
up yonder in the orchard of the immortals. 

You see where it comes to. I need not point it out to you 
any more. It is not simply negative, it is not simply con- 
trolling your lusts and tempers and appetites and passions, 
and is only negative ; but he that abideth in me bringeth 
forth much fruit. Fruitfulness is what God is waiting for 
in his children. Brother, sister, is your life fruitful ? If it is 
not abide with Jesus, he will do all. How does it all hap- 
pen ; that is the thing that I want to come to. God has 
ordained that out of the ground shall everything grow. Let 
us go back to that "dry." You know what dry means. 
The best derivation that I can get out of it is the Hebrew 
root that means, the thing that is broken ; in other words, 
its real equivalent is ground ; out of the ground, that is the 
ground broken up into infinitesimally small particles, just as 
wheat is ground into flour, just as corn is ground into meal. 
That is " the dry," That is the Hebrew word that is trans- 
lated earth. God called the " dry " earth, or ground. It 
comes from the Hebrew root that means to break to pieces, 
to crumble. Do you see the point yet ? God exhorts you 



354 THE THIRD DAY OF CREATION. 

and me to be clay in the hands of the potter; that is dry 
earth. You see what that is. If you will only be clay in 
the hands of the potter everything that I have been telling 
you will become true in your life. Just be clay in the hands 
of the potter. Dear Lord, do you want to knead my body 
up and fix that into a different shape ? Oh, no, that is not 
what does it. You are to be in God's hands as clay in the 
hands of the potter. I will tell you what it is ; it is the 
heart, it is the " I will ;" that is the only thing that you can 
do. You can put your " I will " into God's hand, and he 
can fashion you into a vessel meet for his use. Until you 
do that nothing can be done. It does not matter what you 
are. Mrs. Smith beautifully brings that out in her " Secret 
of a Happy Life." She says, that the clay, when it is first 
put into the hands of a potter, may be filled with gravel 
stones, may be uncouth, lumpy, but it is exactly what the 
potter wants. All he asks is just to have it in his hand, that 
is all. He tears it to pieces, gets the gravel stones out of it, 
kneads it in his hands. Then he tears it to pieces, wets it 
down, until at last it is a lump of mud. It is fit for nothing, 
yet exactly what the potter wanted it to be. Then he puts 
it upon his wheel, gives it a single revolution, puts his thumb 
down into what is a lump of mud with a hole in it. What 
can you do with it ? It is fit for nothing, but it is exactly 
what the potter wants it to be. He then deftly puts his 
fingers inside and skilfully turns it into a vessel, puts a spout 
and a handle there — dear me, it looks like something — yes, 
but it is fit for nothing. Take it up by that handle and it 
will fall to pieces ; yet it is what the potter wants it to be at 
that stage, but it is not finished. He puts it in the oven, 
and now it is hard, but it is still not fit for use. It is un- 
couth in design, unshapely. So he puts it through another 
process and it comes out all ornamented and adorned with 



THE THIED DAY OF CEEATIOX. 355 

beautiful lines and lovely flowers, and now it is useful, meet 
for anybody's use ; and yet it was once a lump of clay. 
What the clay did was to put itself in the potter's hands. 
He did all the rest. God is satisfied with you if you will 
just submit to His will in you ; surrender your will to the 
will of God. A very feeble will may be all that you have to 
offer, but that is all God asks. He wants you to be as clay 
in the potter's hands. By-and-bye your will will grow 
stronger, arid by-and-bye you ; are fashioned into a vessel 
meet for his use; but God never'asks you to put yourself 
in a place you cannot easily put yourself in. 4 Xo tongue 
can tell how weak I was on the 25th of August, 1876, when 
I put myself as clay .in. the;, hands of the potter. The 
very moment I said, " My God, I will trust you/! that very 
moment God said, " Let the dry appear," and the "dry" 
did appear ; let the seas be gathered into places by them- 
selves, and it was so. Now,' dear friends, here comes the 
answer to this standing question of Jesus, how am I to sub- 
due my lusts ? By what means ? I know that God must do 
it. " Give me some answer, Mr. Barnes," you say — " some- 
thing practical that I can do to-day. You tell me that God 
will take away my temper. That is so vague and intangible. 
I know that theoretically just as well as you do, but how ?" 
That is what I am going to tell you. That is what I want 
you to understand. Jesus answered that question that was 
propounded by the wise man. I see these torrents from 
the mountains pouring into the sea. What troubles me is, 
why does it not flow over ? Why doesn't it get too full ? 
Here is the Mississippi, the Orinoco and Amazon, the Xile, 
the Danube, the Niger, every one of them pouring their 
mighty floods into the ocean, and there it is, no fuller than 
it was — how does that come ? I will tell you how it is ; God 
has declared by a perpetual decree as it is there, fear ve 



356 THE THIRD DAY OF OKEATIO^. 

God, who hath made the sand of the sea ; sand that you can 
pick up in your hand and you cannot hold, it will slip be- 
tween your fingers. God hath made that by a perpetual 
decree to be like bars and gates to the sea 9 so that it says to 
that proud thing, Hitherto shalt thou come and no further. 
Can sand fence it in? God has fenced it in with the sea 
shore, and that sea shore is made up of these little par- 
ticles, the clay in the hands of the potter. God commanded 
not rock to appear. He commanded not solid granite to 
appear ; he commanded the " dry " to appear ; and these 
are the things, that keep the sea within its bounds. So the 
beloved God asks you to give up your whole heart to him. 
He takes that, yielded, and makes it a barrier against the 
sea ; more than that, God has commanded that out of the 
"dry" — out of the ground, that is what he called it — shall 
grow everything that does grow. Out of your broken will 
yielded into his hand — out of your willingness shall grow 
every fruit and flower, even a blessed new life, the negative 
and the positive. Your will, put into God's hand like clay 
into the hands of the potter, shall bring these proud lusts 
into perfect subjection. Your will, broken and put into 
God's hand, out of it he has ordained that all fragrance and 
beauty and loveliness of the vegetable creation shall grow. 
What are you going to do ? Put yourself as clay into the 
hands of a potter to use, as a lump of mud, if you please. 
You say, Brother Barnes, I am not fit to be anything ; I am 
not a vessel meet for the master's use. No, I know you are 
not ; you are only a lump of unshapely clay, but you may 
put yourself a little in advance if you like ; put yourself in 
the potter's hands to-day, if you please. I will promise you 
he will bring you out a vessel meet for the master's use. 



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